LETTERS  OF  ANTON  CHEKHOV 
TO  HIS  FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

UBW  YORK  •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •    DAU.AS 
ATUCTTA   •    SAJ<   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Uuttso 

LONDON   •    BOM  BAT  •    CALCVTTA 
MELBOVaXB 

THE  MACMILUO?  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


LETTERS 
OF  ANTON  CHEKHOV 

TO  HIS 
FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

WITH  BIOGR.\PHICAL  SKETCH 


TR.A.NSL.4TED  BY 

CONSTANCE  GARNETT 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1920 

A II  rights  reserved 


COPYKIGHT,  1920, 

BT  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  printed.      Published,  February,  1920 


TRANSLATOR'S  NOTE 

Of  the  eighteen  hundred  and  ninety  letters 
published  by  Chekhov's  family  I  have  chosen  for 
translation  these  letters  and  passages  from  letters 
which  best  to  illustrate  Chekhov's  life,  character  and 
opinions.  The  brief  memoir  is  abridged  and 
adapted  from  the  biographical  sketch  by  his  brother 
Mihail.  Chekhov's  letters  to  his  wife  after  his  mar- 
riage have  not  as  yet  been  published. 


\ 


BIOGKAPIIICAL  SKETCH 

In  1841  a  serf  belonging  to  a  Russian  nobleman  pur- 
chased iiis  freedom  and  the  freedom  of  his  family 
for  3,500  roubles,  i)eing  at  the  rate  of  700  roubles 
a  soul,  with  one  daughter,  Ahixandra,  thrown  in 
for  nothing.  The  grandson  of  this  serf  was  Anton 
Chekhov,  the  author;  the  son  of  the  nobleman 
was  Tcherlkov,  the  Tolstoyan  and  friend  of 
Tolstoy. 

There  is  in  this  nothing  striking  to  a  Russian, 
but  to  the  English  student  it  is  sufficiently  signif- 
icant for  several  reasons.  It  illustrates  how  recent 
a  growth  was  l\u)  (jduealed  middle-class  in  pre- 
revohitionary  Russia,  and  it  sliows,  what  is  pi^rhaps 
more  significant,  the  homogeneity  of  the;  Russian 
people,  and  their  capacity  for  comphitely  changing 
their  whole  way  of  life. 

Clielvhov's  fath(;r  started  life  as  a  slave,  but  the 
son  of  this  slave  was  even  more  sensitives  to  the 
Arts,  more  innately  civilized  and  in  lov(i  wilh  the 
things  of  tlie  min<l  than  the  son  of  the  slave- 
owner. (Jiekhov's  fath(;r,  l\iv(d  Yegorovitch,  had 
a  passion  for  music;  and  singing;  while  he  was  still 
a  serf  boy  he  learned  to  read  music  at  sight  and 
to  play  l\m  violin.  A  few  years  after  his  freedom 
had  been  purchased  he  scuttled  at  Taganrog,  a  town 
on  the  Sea  of  Azov,  where  he  afterwards  opened  a 

^'Colonial  Stores." 

I 


2  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

This  business  did  well  until  the  construction  of  the 
railway  to  Vladikavkaz,  which  greatly  diminished 
the  importance  of  Taganrog  as  a  port  and  a  trading 
centre.  But  Pavel  Yegorovitch  was  always  inclined 
to  neglect  his  business.  He  took  an  active  part 
in  all  the  affairs  of  the  town,  devoted  himself  to 
church  singing,  conducted  the  choir,  played  on  the 
violin,  and  painted  ikons. 

In  1854  he  married  Yevgenia  Yakovlevna  Morozov, 
the  daughter  of  a  cloth  merchant  of  fairly  good 
education  who  had  settled  down  at  Taganrog  after 
a  life  spent  in  travelling  about  Russia  in  the  course 
of  his  business. 

There  were  six  children,  five  of  whom  were  boys, 
Anton  being  the  third  son.  The  family  was  an 
ordinary  patriarchal  household  of  the  kind  common 
at  that  time.  The  father  was  severe,  and  in  excep- 
tional cases  even  went  so  far  as  to  chastise  his 
children,  but  they  all  lived  on  warm  and  affectionate 
terms.  Everyone  got  up  early,  the  boys  went  to 
the  high  school,  and  when  they  returned  learned 
their  lessons.  All  of  them  had  their  hobbies.  The 
eldest,  Alexandr,  would  construct  an  electric  battery, 
Nikolay  used  to  draw,  Ivan  to  bind  books,  while 
Anton  was  always  writing  stories.  In  the  evening, 
when  their  father  came  home  from  the  shop,  there 
was  choral  singing  or  a  duet. 

Pavel  Yegorovitch  trained  his  children  into  a 
regular  choir,  taught  them  to  sing  music  at  sight, 
and  play  on  the  violin,  while  at  one  time  they  had 
a  music  teacher  for  the  piano  too.  There  was  also 
a  French  governess  who  came  to  teach  the  children 
languages.  Every  Saturday  the  whole  family  went 
to   the  evening  service,  and  on  their  return  sang 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  3 

hymns  and  burned  incense.  On  Sunday  morning 
they  went  to  early  mass,  after  which  they  all  sang 
hymns  in  chorus  at  home.  Anton  had  to  learn  the 
whole  church  service  by  heart  and  sing  it  over  with 
his  brothers. 

The  chief  characteristic  distinguishing  the  Chekhov 
family  from  their  neighbours  was  their  habit  of  sing- 
ing and  having  religious  services  at  home. 

Though  the  boys  had  often  to  take  their  father's 
place  in  the  shop,  they  had  leisure  enough  to  enjoy 
themselves.  They  sometimes  went  for  whole  days 
to  the  sea  fishing,  played  Russian  tennis,  and  went 
for  excursions  to  their  grandfather's  in  the  country. 
Anton  was  a  sturdy,  lively  boy,  extremely  intelligent, 
and  inexhaustible  in  jokes  and  enterprises  of  all 
kinds.  He  used  to  get  up  lectures  and  performances, 
and  was  always  acting  and  mimicking.  As  chil- 
dren, the  brothers  got  up  a  performance  of  Gogol's 
"Inspector  General,"  in  which  Anton  took  the  part 
of  Gorodnitchy.  One  of  Anton's  favourite  im- 
provisations was  a  scene  in  which  the  Governor  of 
the  town  attended  church  parade  at  a  festival  and 
stood  in  the  centre  of  the  church,  on  a  rug  sur- 
rounded by  foreign  consuls.  Anton,  dressed  in  his 
high-school  uniform,  with  his  grandfather's  old  sabre 
coming  to  his  shoulder,  used  to  act  the  part  of  the 
Governor  with  extraordinary  subtlety  and  carry  out 
a  review  of  imaginary  Cossacks.  Often  the  children 
would  gather  round  their  mother  or  their  old  nurse 
to  hear  stories. 

Chekhov's  story  "Happiness"  was  written  under 
the  influence  of  one  of  his  nurse's  tales,  which  were 
always  of  the  mysterious,  of  the  extraordinary,  of  the 
terrible,  and  poetical. 


4  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Their  mother,  on  the  other  hand,  told  the  children 
stories  of  real  life,  describing  how  she  had  travelled 
all  over  Russia  as  a  little  girl,  how  the  Allies  had 
bombarded  Taganrog  during  the  Crimean  War,  and 
how  hard  life  had  been  for  the  peasants  in  the 
days  of  serfdom.  She  instilled  into  her  children  a 
hatred  of  brutality  and  a  feeling  of  regard  for  all 
who  were  in  an  inferior  position,  and  for  birds  and 
animals. 

Chekhov  in  later  years  used  to  say:  "Our  talents 
we  got  from  our  father,  but  our  soul  from  our 
mother." 

In  1875  the  two  elder  boys  went  to  Moscow. 

After  their  departure  the  business  went  from  bad 
to  worse,  and  the  family  sank  into  poverty. 

In  1876  Pavel  Yegorovitch  closed  his  shop,  and 
went  to  join  his  sons  in  Moscow.  While  earning 
their  own  living,  one  was  a  student  at  the  University, 
and  the  other  a  student  at  the  School  of  Sculpture 
and  Painting.  The  house  was  sold  by  auction,  one 
of  the  creditors  took  all  the  furniture,  and  Chekhov's 
mother  was  left  with  nothing.  Some  months 
afterwards  she  went  to  rejoin  her  husband  in  Mos- 
cow, taking  the  younger  children  with  her,  while 
Anton,  who  was  then  sixteen,  lived  on  in  solitude 
at  Taganrog  for  three  whole  years,  earning  his  own 
living,  and  paying  for  his  education  at  the  high 
school. 

He  lived  in  the  house  that  had  been  his  father's, 
in  the  family  of  one  Selivanov,  the  creditor  who 
had  bought  it,  and  gave  lessons  to  the  latter's 
nephew,  a  Cossack.  He  went  with  his  pupil  to  the 
latter's  house  in  the  country,  and  learned  to  ride 
and  shoot.     During  the  last  two  years  he  was  very 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  5 

fond  of  the  society  of  the  high-school  girls,  and  used 
to  tell  his  brothers  that  he  had  had  the  most  delight- 
ful flirtations. 

At  the  same  time  he  went  frequently  to  the  theatre 
and  was  very  fond  of  French  melodramas,  so  that 
he  was  by  no  means  crushed  by  his  early  struggle 
for  existence.  In  1879  he  went  to  Moscow  to  enter 
the  University,  bringing  with  him  two  school-fel- 
lows who  boarded  with  his  family.  He  found  his 
father  had  just  succeeded  in  getting  work  away 
from  home,  so  that  from  the  first  day  of  his  arrival 
he  found  himself  head  of  the  family,  every  member 
of  which  had  to  work  for  their  common  livelihood. 
Even  little  Mihail  used  to  copy  out  lectures  for 
students,  and  so  made  a  little  money.  It  was  the 
absolute  necessity  of  earning  money  to  pay  for  his 
fees  at  the  University  and  to  help  in  supporting  the 
household  that  forced  Anton  to  write.  That  winter 
he  wrote  his  first  published  story,  "A  Letter  to  a 
Learned  Neighbour."  All  the  members  of  the 
family  were  closely  bound  together  round  one  com- 
mon centre — Anton.  "What  will  Anton  say?" 
was  always  their  uppermost  thought  on  every  oc- 
casion. 

Ivan  soon  became  the  master  of  the  parish  school 
at  Voskresensk,  a  little  town  in  the  Moscow  province. 
Living  was  cheap  there,  so  the  other  members  of 
the  family  spent  the  summer  there;  they  were  joined 
by  Anton  when  he  had  taken  his  degree,  and  the 
Chekhovs  soon  had  a  large  circle  of  friends  in  the 
neighbourhood.  Every  day  the  company  met,  went 
long  walks,  played  croquet,  discussed  politics,  read 
aloud,  and  went  into  raptures  over  Shtchedrin. 
Here  Chekhov  gained  an  insight  into  military  society 


6  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

which  he  afterwards  turned  to  account  in  his  play 
"The  Three  Sisters." 

One  day  a  young  doctor  called  Uspensky  came 
in  from  Zvenigorod,  a  small  town  fourteen  miles 
away.  "Look  here,"  he  said  to  Chekhov,  "I  am 
going  away  for  a  holiday  and  can't  find  anyone  to 
take  my  place.  .  .  .  You  take  the  job  on.  My 
Pelageya  will  cook  for  you,  and  there  is  a  guitar 
there.   ..." 

Voskresensk  and  Zvenigorod  played  an  important 
part  in  Chekhov's  life  as  a  writer;  a  whole  series  of 
his  tales  is  founded  on  his  experiences  there,  besides 
which  it  was  his  first  introduction  to  the  society  of 
literary  and  artistic  people.  Three  or  four  miles 
from  Voskresensk  was  the  estate  of  a  landowner,  A. 
S.  Kiselyov,  whose  wife  was  the  daughter  of  Begi- 
tchev,  the  director  of  the  Moscow  Imperial  Theatre. 
The  Chekhovs  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  Kise- 
lyovs,  and  spent  three  summers  in  succession  on  their 
estate,  Babkino. 

The  Kiselyovs  were  musical  and  cultivated  peo- 
ple, and  intimate  friends  of  Dargomyzhsky,  Tchay- 
kovsky  the  composer,  and  the  Italian  actor 
SalVini.  Madame  Kiselyov  was  passionately  fond 
of  fishing,  and  would  spend  hours  at  a  time  sitting 
on  the  river  bank  with  Anton,  fishing  and  talking 
about  literature.  She  was  herself  a  writer. 
Chekhov  was  always  playing  with  the  Kiselyov 
children  and  running  about  the  old  park  with  them. 
The  people  he  met,  the  huntsman,  the  gardener, 
the  carpenters,  the  sick  women  who  came  to  him 
for  treatment,  and  the  place  itself,  river,  forests, 
nightingales — all  provided  Chekhov  with  subjects  to 
write  about  and  put  him  in  the  mood  for  writing. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  7 

He  always  got  up  early  and  began  writing  by  seven 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  After  lunch  the  whole  party 
set  off  to  look  for  mushrooms  in  the  woods.  Anton 
was  fond  of  looking  for  mushrooms,  and  said  it 
stimulated  the  imagination.  At  this  time  he  was  al- 
ways talking  nonsense. 

Levitan,  the  painter,  lived  in  the  neighbourhood, 
and  Chekhov  and  he  dressed  up,  blacked  their  faces 
and  put  on  turbans.  Levitan  then  rode  off  on  a 
donkey  through  the  fields,  where  Anton  suddenly 
sprang  out  of  the  bushes  with  a  gun  and  began  firing 
blank  cartridges  at  him. 

In  1886  Chekhov  suffered  for  the  second  time 
from  an  attack  of  spitting  blood.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  consumption  was  developing,  but  apparently  he 
refused  to  believe  this  himself.  He  went  on  being 
as  gay  as  ever,  though  he  slept  badly  and  often 
had  terrible  dreams.  It  was  one  of  these  dreams 
that  suggested  the  subject  of  his  story  "The  Black 
Monk." 

That  year  he  began  to  write  for  the  Novoye  Vremya^ 
which  made  a  special  feature  of  his  work.  Under 
the  influence  of  letters  from  Grigorovitch,  who  was 
the  first  person  to  appreciate  his  talent,  Chekhov  be- 
gan to  take  his  writing  more  seriously. 

In  1887  he  visited  the  south  of  Russia  and  stayed 
at  the  Holy  Mountains,  which  gave  him  the  subjects 
of  two  of  his  stories,  "Easter  Eve"  and  "Uprooted." 
In  the  autumn  of  that  year  he  was  asked  by  Korsh,  a 
theatrical  manager  who  knew  him  as  a  humorous 
writer,  to  write  something  for  his  theatre.  Chekhov 
sat  down  and  wrote  "Ivanov"  in  a  fortnight,  send- 
ing off  every  act  for  rehearsal  as  it  was  com- 
pleted. 


8  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

By  this  time  he  had  won  a  certain  amount  of 
recognition,  everyone  was  talking  of  him,  and  there 
was  consequently  great  curiosity  about  his  new  play. 
The  performance  was,  however,  only  partially  a  suc- 
cess; the  audience,  divided  into  two  parties,  hissed 
vigorously  and  clapped  noisily.  For  a  long  time 
afterwards  the  newspapers  were  full  of  discussions  of 
the  character  and  personality  of  the  hero,  while  the 
novelty  of  the  dramatic  method  attracted  great  atten- 
tion. 

In  January,  1889,  the  play  was  performed  at  the 
Alexandrinsky  Theatre  in  Petersburg  and  the  con- 
troversy broke  out  again. 

'Tvanov"  was  the  turning-point  in  Chekhov's 
mental  development,  and  literary  career.  He  took 
up  his  position  definitely  as  a  writer,  though  his  brass 
plate  continued  to  hang  on  the  door.  Shortly  after 
writing  "Ivanov,"  he  wrote  a  one-act  play  called 
"The  Bear."  The  following  season  Solovtsev,  who 
had  taken  the  chief  character  in  "The  Bear,"  opened 
a  theatre  of  his  own  in  Moscow,  which  was  not  at  first 
a  success.  He  appealed  to  Chekhov  to  save  him  with 
a  play  for  Christmas,  which  was  only  ten  days  off. 
Chekhov  set  to  work  and  wrote  an  act  every  day. 
The  play  was  produced  in  time,  but  the  author  was 
never  satisfied  with  it,  and  after  a  short,  very  suc- 
cessful run  took  it  off  the  stage.  Several  years  later 
he  completely  remodelled  it  and  produced  it  as 
"Uncle  Vanya"  at  the  Art  Theatre  in  Moscow.  At 
this  time  he  was  writing  a  long  novel,  of  which 
he  often  dreamed  aloud,  and  which  he  liked  to 
talk  about.  He  w^as  for  several  years  writing  at 
this  novel,  but  no  doubt  finally  destroyed  it,  as 
no    trace   of   it    could   be   found   after   his    death. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  9 

He  wanted  it  to  embody  his  views  on  life,  opin- 
ions which  he  expressed  in  a  letter  to  Plestcheyev  in 
these  words: 

"I  am  not  a  Liberal,  not  a  Conservative.  ...  I 
should  have  liked  to  have  been  a  free  artist  and  noth- 
ing more — and  I  regret  that  God  has  not  given 
me  the  strength  to  be  one.  I  hate  lying  and  vio- 
lence in  all  their  forms — the  most  absolute  free- 
dom, freedom  from  force  and  fraud  in  whatever 
form  the  two  latter  may  be  expressed,  that  is 
the  programme  I  would  hold  to  if  I  were  a  great 
artist." 

At  this  time  he  was  always  gay  and  insisted 
on  having  people  round  him  while  he  worked. 
His  little  house  in  Moscow,  which  "looked  like  a 
chest  of  drawers,"  was  a  centre  to  which  people,  and 
especially  young  people,  flocked  in  swarms.  Up- 
stairs they  played  the  piano,  a  hired  one,  while  down- 
stairs he  sat  writing  through  it  all.  "I  positively 
can't  live  without  visitors,"  he  wrote  to  Suvorin; 
"when  I  am  alone,  for  some  reason  I  am  frightened." 
This  gay  life  which  seemed  so  full  of  promise  was, 
however,  interrupted  by  violent  fits  of  coughing. 
He  tried  to  persuade  other  people,  and  perhaps  him- 
self, that  it  was  not  serious,  and  he  would  not  consent 
to  be  properly  examined.  He  was  sometimes  so 
weak  from  haemorrhage  that  he  could  see  no  one,  but 
as  soon  as  the  attack  was  over  his  mood  changed,  the 
doors  were  thrown  open,  visitors  arrived,  there  was 
music  again,  and  Chekhov  was  once  more  in  the  wild- 
est spirits. 

The  summers  of  those  two  years,  1888  and  1889, 
he  spent  with  his  family  in  a  summer  villa  at  Luka, 
in  the  province  of  Harkov.     He  was  in  ecstasies  be- 


10  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

forehand  over  the  deep,  broad  river,  full  of  fish  and 
crayfish,  the  pond  full  of  carp,  the  woods,  the  old 
garden,  and  the  abundance  of  young  ladies.  His  ex- 
pectations were  fulfilled  in  every  particular,  and  he 
had  all  the  fishing  and  musical  society  he  could  wish 
for.  Soon  after  his  arrival  Plestcheyev  came  to 
stay  with  him  on  a  month's  visit. 

He  was  an  old  man  in  feeble  health,  but  attractive 
to  everyone.  Young  ladies  in  particular  were  im- 
mediately fascinated  by  him.  He  used  to  compose 
his  works  aloud,  sometimes  shouting  at  the  top  of  his 
voice,  so  that  Chekhov  would  run  in  and  ask  him  if 
he  wanted  anything.  Then  the  old  man  would  give 
a  sweet  and  guilty  smile  and  go  on  with  his  work. 
Chekhov  was  in  constant  anxiety  about  the  old  man's 
health,  as  he  was  very  fond  of  cakes  and  pastry,  and 
Chekhov's  mother  used  to  regale  him  on  them  to 
such  an  extent  that  Anton  was  constantly  having  to 
give  him  medicine.  Afterwards  Suvorin,  the  editor 
of  Novoye  Vremya,  came  to  stay.  Chekhov  and  he 
used  to  paddle  in  a  canoe,  hollowed  out  of  a  tree,  to 
an  old  mill,  where  they  would  spend  hours  fishing 
and  talking  about  literature. 

Both  the  grandsons  of  serfs,  both  cultivated  and 
talented  men,  they  were  greatly  attracted  by  each 
other.  Their  friendship  lasted  for  several  years, 
and  on  account  of  Suvorin's  reactionary  opinions,  ex- 
posed Chekhov  to  a  great  deal  of  criticism  in  Russia. 
Chekhov's  feelings  for  Suvorin  began  to  change  at 
the  time  of  the  Dreyfus  case,  but  he  never  broke  en- 
tirely with  him.  Suvorin's  feelings  for  Chekhov  re- 
mained unchanged. 

In  the  spring  of  1889  his  brother  Nikolay,  the 
artist,  fell  ill  with  consumption,  and  his  illness  oc- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  11 

cupied  Anton  entirely,  and  completely  prevented  his 
working.  That  summer  Nikolay  died,  and  it  was 
under  the  influence  of  this,  his  first  great  sorrow,  that 
Chekhov  wrote  "A  Dreary  Story."  For  several 
months  after  the  death  of  his  brother  he  was  ex- 
tremely restless  and  depressed. 

In  1890  his  younger  brother  Mihail  was  taking 
his  degree  in  law  at  Moscow,  and  studying  treatises 
on  the  management  of  prisons.  Chekhov  got  hold 
of  them,  became  intensely  interested  in  prisons,  and 
resolved  to  visit  the  penal  settlement  of  Sahalin.  He 
made  up  his  mind  to  go  to  the  Far  East  so  unex- 
pectedly that  it  was  difficult  for  his  family  to  believe 
that  he  was  in  earnest. 

He  was  afraid  that  after  Kennan's  revelations 
about  the  penal  system  in  Siberia,  he  would,  as  a 
writer,  be  refused  permission  to  visit  the  prisons  in 
Sahalin,  and  therefore  tried  to  get  a  free  pass  from 
the  head  of  the  prison  administration,  Galkin-Vrass- 
koy.  When  this  proved  fruitless  he  set  off  in  April, 
1890,  with  no  credentials  but  his  card  as  a  newspaper 
correspondent. 

The  Siberian  railway  did  not  then  exist,  and  only 
after  great  hardships,  being  held  up  by  floods  and 
by  the  impassable  state  of  the  roads,  Chekhov  suc- 
ceeded in  reaching  Sahalin  on  the  11th  of  July,  hav- 
ing driven  nearly  3,000  miles.  He  stayed  three 
months  on  the  island,  traversed  it  from  north  to 
south,  made  a  census  of  the  population,  talked  to 
every  one  of  the  ten  thousand  convicts,  and  made  a 
careful  study  of  the  convict  system.  Apparently  the 
chief  reason  for  all  this  was  the  consciousness 
that  "We  have  destroyed  millions  of  men  in  prisons. 
...     It  is  not  the  superintendents  of  the  prisons 


12  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

who  are  to  blame,  but  all  of  us."  In  Russia  it 
was  not  possible  to  be  a  "free  artist  and  nothing 
more." 

Chekhov  left  Sahalin  in  October  and  returned  to 
Europe  by  way  of  India  and  the  Suez  Canal.  He 
wanted  to  visit  Japan,  but  the  steamer  was  not 
allowed  to  put  in  at  the  port  on  account  of 
cholera. 

In  the  Indian  Ocean  he  used  to  bathe  by  diving, 
off  the  forecastle  deck  when  the  steamer  was  going 
at  full  speed,  and  catching  a  rope  which  was  let 
down  from  the  stern.  Once  while  he  was  doing  this 
he  saw  a  shark  and  a  shoal  of  pilot  fish  close  to 
him  in  the  water,  as  he  describes  in  his  story 
"Gusev." 

The  fruits  of  this  journey  were  a  series  of  articles 
in  Russkaya  Myssl  on  the  island  of  Sahalin,  and  two 
short  stories,  "Gusev"  and  "In  Exile."  His  articles 
on  Sahalin  were  looked  on  with  a  favourable  eye  in 
Petersburg,  and,  who  knows,  it  is  possible  that  the 
reforms  which  followed  in  regard  to  penal  servitude 
and  exile  would  not  have  taken  place  but  for  their 
influence. 

After  about  a  month  in  Moscow,  Chekhov  went  to 
Petersburg  to  see  Suvorin.  The  majority  of  his 
Petersburg  friends  and  admirers  met  him  with  feel- 
ings of  envy  and  ill-will.  People  gave  dinners  in  his 
honour  and  praised  him  to  the  skies,  but  at  the  same 
time  they  were  ready  to  "tear  him  to  pieces."  Even 
in  Moscow  such  people  did  not  give  him  a  moment 
for  work  or  rest.  He  was  so  prostrated  by  the  feel- 
ing of  hostility  surrounding  him  that  he  accepted 
an  invitation  from  Suvorin  to  go  abroad  with  him. 
When    Chekhov   had   completed    arrangements    for 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  13 

equipping  the  Sahalin  schools  with  the  necessary 
books,  they  set  off  for  the  South  of  Europe.  Vienna 
delighted  him,  and  Venice  surpassed  all  his  expec- 
tations and  threw  him  into  a  state  of  childlike 
ecstasy. 

Everything  fascinated  him — and  then  there  was 
a  change  in  the  weather  and  a  steady  downpour  of 
rain.  Chekhov's  spirits  drooped.  Venice  was  damp 
and  seemed  horrible,  and  he  longed  to  escape  from  it. 

He  had  had  just  such  a  change  of  mood  in  Singa- 
pore, which  interested  him  immensely  and  sud- 
denly filled  him  with  such  misery  that  he  wanted  to 
cry. 

After  Venice  Chekhov  did  not  get  the  pleasure  he 
expected  from  any  Italian  town.  Florence  did  not 
attract  him;  the  sun  was  not  shining.  Rome  gave 
him  the  impression  of  a  provincial  town.  He  was 
feeling  exhausted,  and  to  add  to  his  depression  he 
had  got  into  debt,  and  had  the  prospect  of  spending 
the  summer  without  any  money  at  all. 

TravelUng  with  Suvorin,  who  did  not  stint  him- 
self, drew  him  into  spending  more  than  he  intended, 
and  he  owed  Suvorin  a  sum  which  was  further  in- 
creased at  Monte  Carlo  by  Chekhov's  losing  nine  hun- 
dred roubles  at  roulette.  But  this  loss  was  a  bless- 
ing to  him  in  so  far  as,  for  some  reason,  it  made  him 
feel  satisfied  with  himself.  At  the  end  of  April, 
1891,  after  a  stay  in  Paris,  Chekhov  returned  to  Mos- 
cow. Except  at  Vienna  and  for  the  first  days  in 
Venice  and  at  Nice,  it  had  rained  the  whole  time. 
On  his  return  he  had  to  work  extremely  hard  to  pay 
for  his  two  tours.  His  brother  Mihail  was  at  this 
time  inspector  of  taxes  at  Alexino,  and  Chekhov  and 
his  household  spent  the  summer  not  far  from  that 


14  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

town  in  the  province  of  Kaluga,  so  as  to  be  near  him. 
They  took  a  house  dating  from  the  days  of  Catherine. 
Chekhov's  mother  had  to  sit  down  and  rest  halfway 
when  she  crossed  the  hall,  the  rooms  were  so  large. 
He  liked  the  place  with  its  endless  avenues  of  lime- 
trees  and  poetical  river,  while  fishing  and  gathering 
mushrooms  soothed  him  and  put  him  in  the  mood  for 
work.  Here  he  went  on  with  his  story  "The  Duel," 
which  he  had  begun  before  going  abroad.  From  the 
windows  there  was  the  view  of  an  old  house  which 
Chekhov  described  in  "An  Artist's  Story,"  and  which 
he  was  very  eager  to  buy.  Indeed  from  this  time  he 
began  thinking  of  buying  a  country  place  of  his  own, 
not  in  Little  Russia,  but  in  Central  Russia.  Peters- 
burg seemed  to  him  more  and  more  idle,  cold  and 
egoistic,  and  he  had  lost  all  faith  in  his  Petersburg 
acquaintances.  On  the  other  hand,  Moscow  no 
longer  seemed  to  him  as  before  "like  a  cook,"  and  he 
grew  to  love  it.  He  grew  fond  of  its  climate,  its 
people  and  its  bells.  He  always  delighted  in  bells. 
Sometimes  in  earlier  days  he  had  gathered  together 
a  party  of  friends  and  gone  with  them  to  Kamenny 
Bridge  to  listen  to  the  Easter  bells.  After  eagerly 
listening  to  them  he  would  set  off  to  wander  from 
church  to  church,  and  with  his  legs  giving  way  under 
him  from  fatigue  would,  only  when  Easter  night 
was  over,  make  his  way  homewards.  Meanwhile 
his  father,  who  was  fond  of  staying  till  the  end 
of  the  service,  would  return  from  the  parish  church, 
and  all  the  brothers  would  sing  "Christ  is  risen" 
in  chorus,  and  then  they  all  sat  down  to  break 
their  fast.  Chekhov  never  spent  an  Easter  night  in 
bed. 

Meanwhile  in  the  spring  of  1892  there  began  to 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  15 

be  fears  about  the  crops.  These  apprehensions  were 
soon  confirmed.  An  unfortunate  summer  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  hard  autumn  and  winter,  in  which  many 
districts  were  famine-stricken.  Side  by  side  with 
the  Government  relief  of  the  starving  population 
there  was  a  widespread  movement  for  organizing 
relief,  in  which  various  societies  and  private  persons 
took  part.  Chekhov  naturally  w^as  drawn  into  this 
movement.  The  provinces  of  Nizhni-Novogorod 
and  Voronezh  were  in  the  greatest  distress,  and  in 
the  former  of  these  two  provinces,  Yegorov,  an  old 
friend  of  Chekhov's  Voskresensk  days,  was  a  district 
captain  (Zemsky  Natchalnik).  Chekhov  wrote  to 
Yegorov,  got  up  a  subscription  fund  among  his  ac- 
quaintance, and  finally  set  off  himself  for  Nizhni- 
Novogorod.  As  the  starving  peasants  were  selling 
their  horses  and  cattle  for  next  to  nothing,  or  even 
slaughtering  them  for  food,  it  was  feared  that  as 
spring  came  on  there  would  be  no  beasts  to  plough 
with,  so  that  the  coming  year  threatened  to  be  one 
of  famine  also. 

Chekhov  organized  a  scheme  for  buying  up  the 
horses  and  feeding  them  till  the  spring  at  the  expense 
of  a  relief  fund,  and  then,  as  soon  as  field  labour  was 
possible,  distributing  them  among  the  peasants  who 
were  without  horses. 

After  visiting  the  province  of  Nizhni-Novogorod, 
Chekhov  went  with  Suvorin  to  Voronezh.  But  this 
expedition  was  not  a  successful  one.  He  was  re- 
volted by  the  ceremonious  dinners  with  which  he  was 
welcomed  as  an  author,  while  the  whole  province  was 
suffering  from  famine.  Moreover  travelling  with 
Suvorin  tied  him  down  and  hindered  his  independent 
action.     Chekhov  longed   for  intense  personal  ac- 


t 


16  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

tivity  such  as  he  displayed  later  in  his  campaign 
against  the  cholera. 

In  the  winter  of  the  same  year  his  long-cherished 
dream  was  realized:  he  bought  himself  an  estate. 
It  was  in  the  province  of  Moscow,  near  the  hamlet 
of  Melihovo.  As  an  estate  it  had  nothing  to  rec- 
ommend it  but  an  old,  badly  laid  out  homestead, 
wastes  of  land,  and  a  forest  that  had  been  felled. 
It  had  been  bought  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
simply  because  it  had  happened  to  turn  up. 
Chekhov  had  never  been  to  the  place  before  he  bought 
it,  and  only  visited  it  when  all  the  formalities  had  been 
completed.  One  could  hardly  turn  round  near  the 
house  for  the  mass  of  hurdles  and  fences.  More- 
over the  Chekhovs  moved  into  it  in  the  winter  when 
it  was  under  snow,  and  all  boundaries  being  obliter- 
ated, it  was  impossible  to  tell  what  was  theirs  and 
what  was  not.  But  in  spite  of  all  that,  Chekhov's 
first  impression  was  favourable,  and  he  never  showed 
a  sign  of  being  disappointed.  He  was  delighted  by 
the  approach  of  spring  and  the  fresh  surprises  that 
were  continually  being  revealed  by  the  melting  snow. 
Suddenly  it  would  appear  that  a  whole  haystack  be- 
longed to  him  which  he  had  supposed  to  be  a  neigh- 
bour's, then  an  avenue  of  lime-trees  came  to  light 
which  they  had  not  distinguished  before  under 
the  snow.  Everything  that  was  amiss  in  the 
place,  everything  he  did  not  like,  was  at  once 
abolished  or  altered.  But  in  spite  of  all  the 
defects  of  the  house  and  its  surroundings,  and 
the  appalling  road  from  the  station  (nearly 
nine  miles)  and  the  lack  of  rooms,  so  many 
visitors  came  that  there  was  nowhere  to  put 
them,  and  beds  had  sometimes  to  be  made  up  in  the 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  17 

passages.  Chekhov's  household  at  this  time  con- 
sisted of  his  father  and  mother,  his  sister,  and  his 
younger  brother  Mihail.  These  were  all  permanent 
inmates  of  Melihovo. 

As  soon  as  the  snow  had  disappeared  the  various 
duties  in  the  house  and  on  the  land  were  assigned: 
Chekhov's  sister  undertook  the  flower-beds  and  the 
kitchen  garden,  his  younger  brother  undertook  the 
field  work.  Chekhov  himself  planted  the  trees  and 
looked  after  them.  His  father  worked  from  morning 
till  night  weeding  the  paths  in  the  garden  and  mak- 
ing new  ones. 

Everything  attracted  the  new  landowner:  plant- 
ing the  bulbs  and  watching  the  flight  of  rooks 
and  starlings,  sowing  the  clover,  and  the  goose 
hatching  out  her  goslings.  By  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning  Chekhov  was  up  and  about.  After 
drinking  his  coffee  he  would  go  out  into  the  gar- 
den and  would  spend  a  long  time  scrutinizing 
every  fruit-tree  and  every  rose-bush,  now  cutting 
off  a  branch,  now  training  a  shoot,  or  he  would 
squat  on  his  heels  by  a  stump  and  gaze  at  some- 
thing on  the  ground.  It  turned  out  that  there 
was  more  land  than  they  needed  (639  acres), 
and  they  farmed  it  themselves,  with  no  bailiff 
or  steward,  assisted  only  by  two  labourers,  Frol 
and  Ivan. 

At  eleven  o'clock  Chekhov,  who  got  through  a 
good  deal  of  writing  in  the  morning,  would  go  into 
the  dining-room  and  look  significantly  at  the  clock. 
His  mother  would  jump  up  from  her  seat  and  her 
sewing-machine  and  begin  to  bustle  about,  crying: 
"Oh  dear!   Antosha  wants  his  dinner!" 

When  the  table  was  laid  there  were  so  manv  home- 


18  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

made  and  other  dainties  prepared  by  his  mother  that 
there  would  hardly  be  space  on  the  table  for  them. 
There  was  not  room  to  sit  at  the  table  either.  Be- 
sides the  five  permanent  members  of  the  family  there 
were  invariably  outsiders  as  well.  After  dinner 
Chekhov  used  to  go  off  to  his  bedroom  and  lock  him- 
self in  to  "read."  Between  his  after-dinner  nap 
and  tea-time  he  wrote  again.  The  time  between  tea 
and  supper  (at  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening)  was 
devoted  to  walks  and  outdoor  work.  At  ten  o'clock 
they  went  to  bed.  Lights  were  put  out  and  all  was 
stillness  in  the  house;  the  only  sound  was  a  subdued 
singing  and  monotonous  recitation.  This  was  Pavel 
Yegorovitch  repeating  the  evening  service  in  his 
room:  he  was  religious  and  liked  to  say  his  prayers 
aloud. 

From  the  first  day  that  Chekhov  moved  to  Melihovo 
the  sick  began  flocking  to  him  from  twenty  miles 
around.  They  came  on  foot  or  were  brought  in  carts, 
and  often  he  was  fetched  to  patients  at  a  distance. 
Sometimes  from  early  in  the  morning  peasant  women 
and  children  were  standing  before  his  door  waiting. 
He  would  go  out,  listen  to  them  and  sound  them,  and 
would  never  let  one  go  away  without  advice  and  medi- 
cine. His  expenditure  on  drugs  was  considerable,  as 
he  had  to  keep  a  regular  store  of  them.  Once  some 
wayfarers  brought  Chekhov  a  man  they  had  picked 
up  by  the  roadside  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  stabbed 
in  the  stomach  with  a  pitchfork.  The  peasant 
was  carried  into  his  study  and  put  down  in  the 
middle  of  the  floor,  and  Chekhov  spent  a  long 
time  looking  after  him,  examining  his  wounds 
and  bandaging  them  up.  But  what  was  hardest 
for   Chekhov   was   visiting   the   sick   at   their   own 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  19 

homes:  sometimes  there  was  a  journey  of  several 
hours,  and  in  this  way  the  time  essential  for  writing 
was  wasted. 

Tlie  first  winter  at  Melihovo  was  cold;  it  lasted 
late  and  food  was  short.  Easter  came  in  the  snow. 
There  was  a  church  at  Melihovo  in  which  a  service 
was  held  only  once  a  year,  at  Easter.  Visitors  from 
Moscow  were  staying  with  Chekhov.  The  family  got 
up  a  choir  among  themselves  and  sang  all  the  Easter 
matins  and  mass.  Pavel  Yegorovitch  conducted  as 
usual.  It  was  out  of  the  ordinary  and  touching,  and 
the  peasants  were  delighted:  it  warmed  their  hearts 
to  their  new  neighbours. 

Then  the  thaw  came.  The  roads  became  appal- 
ling. There  were  only  three  broken-down  horses  on 
the  estate  and  not  a  wisp  of  hay.  The  horses  had  to 
be  fed  on  rye  straw  chopped  up  with  an  axe 
and  sprinkled  with  flour.  One  of  the  horses  was 
vicious  and  there  was  no  getting  it  out  of  the  yard. 
Another  was  stolen  in  the  fields  and  a  dead  horse  left 
in  its  place.  And  so  for  a  long  time  there  was  only 
one  poor  spiritless  beast  to  drive  which  was  nick- 
named Anna  Petrovna.  This  Anna  Petrovna  con- 
trived to  trot  to  the  station,  to  take  Chekhov  to 
his  patients,  to  haul  logs  and  to  eat  nothing  but 
straw  sprinkled  with  flour.  But  Chekhov  and 
his  family  did  not  lose  heart.  Always  affectionate, 
gay  and  plucky,  he  cheered  the  others,  work 
went  ahead,  and  in  less  than  three  months  every- 
thing in  the  place  was  changed:  the  house  was 
furnished  with  crockery;  there  was  the  ring  of 
carpenters'  axes;  six  horses  were  bought,  and 
all  the  field  work  for  the  spring  had  been 
completed  in  good  time  and  in  accordance  with  the 


20  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

rules  of  agricultural  science.  They  had  no  experi- 
ence at  all,  but  bought  masses  of  books  on  the  man- 
agement of  the  land,  and  ever)^  question,  however 
small,  was  debated  in  common. 

Their  first  successes  delighted  Chekhov.  He  had 
thirty  acres  under  rye,  thirty  under  oats,  and  fully 
thirty  under  hay.  Marvels  were  being  done  in  the 
kitchen  garden:  tomatoes  and  artichokes  did  well  in 
the  open  air.  A  dry  spring  and  summer  ruined  the 
oats  and  the  rye;  the  peasants  cut  the  hay  in  return 
for  half  the  crop,  and  Chekhov's  half  seemed  a 
small  stack;  only  in  the  kitchen  garden  things  went 
well. 

The  position  of  Melihovo  on  the  highroad  and  the 
news  that  Chekhov  the  author  had  settled  there  inevi- 
tably led  to  new  acquaintances.  Doctors  and  mem- 
bers of  the  local  Zemstvos  began  visiting  Chekhov; 
acquaintance  was  made  with  the  officials  of  the  dis- 
trict, and  Chekhov  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Serpuhov  Sanitary  Council. 

At  that  time  cholera  was  raging  in  the  South  of 
Russia.  Every  day  it  came  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
province  of  Moscow,  and  everywhere  it  found  favour- 
able conditions  among  the  population  weakened  by 
the  famine  of  autumn  and  winter.  It  was  essential 
to  take  immediate  measures  for  meeting  the 
cholera,  and  the  Zemstvo  of  Serpuhov  worked  its 
hardest.  Chekhov  as  a  doctor  and  a  member  of 
the  Sanitaiy  Council  was  asked  to  take  charge  of 
a  section.  He  immediately  gave  his  services  for 
nothing.  He  had  to  drive  about  among  the  manu- 
facturers of  the  district  persuading  them  to  take 
adequate  measures  to  combat  the  cholera.  Owing 
to  his  efforts  the  whole  section  containing  twenty- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  21 

five  villages  and  hamlets  was  covered  with  a  net- 
work of  the  necessary  institutions.  For  several 
months  Chekhov  scarcely  got  out  of  his  chaise. 
During  that  time  he  had  to  drive  all  over  his  sec- 
tion, receive  patients  at  home,  and  do  his  literary 
work.  He  returned  home  shattered  and  exhausted, 
but  always  behaved  as  though  he  were  doing  some- 
thing trivial;  he  cracked  little  jokes  and  made 
everyone  laugh  as  before,  and  carried  on  conversa- 
tions with  his  dachshund,  Quinine,  about  her  sup- 
posed sufferings. 

By  early  autumn  the  place  had  become  unrecog- 
nizable. The  outhouses  had  been  rebuilt,  unneces- 
sary fences  had  been  removed,  rose-trees  had  been 
planted,  a  flower-bed  had  been  laid  out;  in  the 
fields  before  the  gates  Chekhov  was  planning  to  dig 
a  big  new  pond.  With  what  interest  he  watched 
each  day  the  progress  of  the  work  upon  it!  He 
planted  trees  round  it  and  dropped  into  it  tiny 
carp  and  perch  which  he  brought  with  him  in  a  jar 
from  Moscow.  The  pond  became  later  on  more  like 
an  ichthyological  station  than  a  pond,  as  there  was 
no  kind  of  fish  in  Russia,  except  the  pike,  of  which 
Chekhov  had  not  representatives  in  this  pond.  He 
liked  sitting  on  the  dam  on  its  bank  and  watching 
with  ecstasy  shoals  of  little  fish  coming  suddenly 
to  the  surface  and  then  hiding  in  its  depths.  An 
excellent  well  had  been  dug  in  Melihovo  before  this. 
Chekhov  had  been  very  anxious  that  it  should  be 
in  Little  Russian  style  with  a  crane.  But  the  posi- 
tion did  not  allow  of  this,  and  it  was  made  with  a 
big  wheel  painted  yellow  like  the  wells  at  Russian 
railway  stations.  The  question  where  to  dig  this 
well  and  whether  the  water  in  it  would  be  good 


22  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

greatly  interested  Chekhov.  He  wanted  exact  in- 
formation and  a  theory  based  on  good  grounds,  see- 
ing that  nine-tenths  of  Russia  uses  water  out  of  wells, 
and  has  done  so  since  time  immemorial;  but  when- 
ever he  questioned  the  well-sinkers  who  came  to  him, 
he  received  the  same  vague  answer:  "Who  can  tell? 
It's  in  God's  hands.  Can  you  find  out  beforehand 
what  the  water  will  be  like?" 

But  the  well,  like  the  pond,  was  a  great  success, 
and  the  water  turned  out  to  be  excellent. 

He  began  seriously  planning  to  build  a  new  house 
and  farm  buildings.  Creative  activity  was  his  pas- 
sion. He  was  never  satisfied  with  what  he  had 
ready-made;  he  longed  to  make  something  new. 
He  planted  little  trees,  raised  pines  and  fir-trees 
from  seed,  looked  after  them  as  though  they  were 
his  children,  and,  like  Colonel  Vershinin  in  his 
"Three  Sisters,"  dreamed  as  he  looked  at  them  of 
what  they  would  be  like  in  three  or  four  hundred 
years. 

The  winter  of  1893  was  a  severe  one  with  a  great 
deal  of  snow.  The  snow  was  so  high  under  the 
windows  that  the  hares  who  ran  into  the  garden  stood 
on  their  hind-legs  and  looked  into  the  window  of 
Chekhov's  study.  The  swept  paths  in  the  garden 
were  like  deep  trenches.  By  then  Chekhov  had  fin- 
ished his  work  in  connection  with  the  cholera  and 
he  began  to  live  the  life  of  a  hermit.  His  sister 
found  employment  in  Moscow;  only  his  father  and 
mother  were  left  with  him  in  the  house,  and  the 
hours  seemed  very  long.  They  went  to  bed  even 
earlier  than  in  the  summer,  but  Chekhov  would 
wake  up  at  one  in  the  morning,  sit  down  to  his  work 
and  then  go  back  to  bed  and  sleep  again.     At  six 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  23 

o'clock  in  the  morning  all  the  household  was  up. 
Chekhov  wrote  a  great  deal  that  winter.  But  as  soon 
as  visitors  arrived,  life  was  completely  transformed. 
There  was  singing,  playing  on  the  piano,  laughter. 
Chekhov's  mother  did  her  utmost  to  load  the  tables 
with  dainties;  his  father  with  a  mysterious  air 
would  produce  various  specially  prepared  cordials 
and  liqueurs  from  some  hidden  recess;  and  then  it 
seemed  that  Melihovo  had  something  of  its  own, 
peculiar  to  it,  which  could  be  found  in  no  other 
country  estate.  Chekhov  was  always  particularly 
pleased  at  the  visits  of  Miss  Mizinov  and  of  Pota- 
penko.  He  was  particularly  fond  of  them,  and  his 
whole  family  rejoiced  at  their  arrival.  They  stayed 
up  long  after  midnight  on  such  days,  and  Chekhov 
wrote  only  by  snatches.  And  every  time  he  wrote 
five  or  six  lines,  he  would  get  up  again  and  go  back  to 
his  visitors. 

"I  have  written  sixty  kopecks'  worth,"  he  would 
say  with  a  smile. 

Braga's  "Serenade"  was  the  fashion  at  that  time, 
and  Chekhov  was  found  of  hearing  Potapenko  play  it 
on  the  violin  while  Miss  Mizinov  sang  it. 

Having  been  a  student  at  the  Moscow  University, 
Chekhov  liked  to  celebrate  St.  Tatyana's  Day.  He 
never  missed  making  a  holiday  of  it  when  he  lived 
in  Moscow.  That  winter,  for  the  first  time,  he 
chanced  to  be  in  Petersburg  on  the  12th  of  January. 
He  did  not  forget  "St.  Tatyana,"  and  assembled  all 
his  literary  friends  on  that  day  in  a  Petersburg 
restaurant.  They  made  speeches  and  kept  the  holi- 
day, and  this  festivity  initiated  by  him  was  so  suc- 
cessful that  the  authors  went  on  meeting  regularly 
afterwards. 


24  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Though  Mehhovo  was  his  permanent  home. 
Chekhov  often  paid  visits  to  Moscow  and  Peters- 
burg. He  frequently  stayed  at  hotels,  and  there  he 
sometimes  had  difficulties  over  his  passport.  As  a 
landowner  he  had  no  need  of  credentials  from  the 
police  in  the  Serpuhov  district,  and  found  his  Uni- 
versity diploma  sufficient.  In  Petersburg  and  Mos- 
cow, under  the  old  passport  regulations  they  would 
not  give  him  a  passport  because  he  resided 
permanently  in  the  provinces.  Misunderstandings 
arose,  sometimes  developing  into  disagreeable  in- 
cidents and  compelling  Chekhov  to  return  home 
earlier  than  he  had  intended.  Someone  suggested 
to  Chekhov  that  he  should  enter  the  Government 
service  and  immediately  retire  from  it,  as  retired  of- 
ficials used  at  that  time  to  receive  a  permanent  pass- 
port from  the  department  in  which  they  had  served. 
Chekhov  sent  a  petition  to  the  Department  of 
Medicine  for  a  post  to  be  assigned  to  him,  and 
received  an  appointment  as  an  extra  junior  medical 
clerk  in  that  Department,  and  soon  afterwards  sent 
in  his  resignation,  after  which  he  had  no  more 
trouble. 

Chekhov  spent  the  whole  spring  of  1893  at  Meli- 
hovo,  planted  roses,  looked  after  his  fruit-trees,  and 
was  enthusiastic  over  country  life.  That  summer 
Melihovo  was  especially  crowded  with  visitors. 
Chekhov  was  visited  not  only  by  his  friends,  but  also 
by  people  whose  acquaintance  he  neither  sought  nor 
desired.  People  were  sleeping  on  sofas  and  several 
in  a  room;  some  even  spent  the  night  in  the  passage. 
Young  ladies,  authors,  local  doctors,  members  of  the 
Zemstvo,  distant  relations  with  their  sons — all  these 
people  flitted  through  Melihovo.     Life  was  a  con- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  25 

tinual  whirl,  everyone  was  gay;  this  rush  of  visitors 
and  the  everlasting  readiness  of  Chekhov's  mother 
to  regale  them  with  food  and  drink  seemed  like  a 
return  to  the  good  old  times  of  country  life  in  the 
past.  Chekhov  was  the  centre  on  which  all  attention 
was  concentrated.  Everyone  sought  him,  lived  in 
him,  and  caught  up  every  word  he  uttered.  When 
he  was  with  friends  he  liked  taking  walks  or  making 
expeditions  to  the  neighbouring  monastei^.  The 
chaise,  the  cart,  and  the  racing  droshky  were  brought 
out.  Chekhov  put  on  his  white  tunic,  buckled  a 
strap  round  his  waist,  and  got  on  the  racing  droshky. 
A  young  lady  would  sit  sideways  behind  him,  hold- 
ing on  to  the  strap.  The  white  tunic  and  strap  used 
to  make  Chekhov  call  himself  an  Hussar.  The  party 
would  set  off;  the  "Hussar"  in  the  racing  droshky 
would  lead  the  way,  and  then  came  the  cart  and  the 
chaise  full  of  visitors. 

The  numbers  of  guests  necessitated  more  build- 
ing, as  the  house  would  not  contain  them  all.  In- 
stead of  a  farm,  new  buildings  close  to  the  house 
itself  were  begun.  Some  of  the  farm  buildings  were 
pulled  down,  others  were  put  up  after  Chekhov's  own 
plans.  A  new  cattle  yard  made  its  appearance,  and 
by  it  a  hut  with  a  well  and  a  hurdle  fence  in  the 
Little  Russian  style,  a  bathhouse,  a  barn,  and  finally 
Chekhov's  dream — a  lodge.  It  was  a  little  house 
with  three  tiny  rooms,  in  one  of  which  a  bedstead 
was  put  with  difficulty,  and  in  another  a  writing-table. 
At  first  this  lodge  was  intended  only  for  visitors,  but 
afterwards  Chekhov  moved  into  it  and  there  he  WTOte 
his  "Seagull."  This  little  lodge  was  built  among 
the  fruit-bushes,  and  to  reach  it  one  had  to  pass 
through  the  orchard.     In  spring,  when  the  apples 


26    ,  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

and  cherries  were  in  blossom,  it  was  pleasant  to  live 
in  this  lodge,  but  in  winter  it  was  so  buried  in  the 
snow  that  pathways  had  to  be  cut  to  it  through  drifts 
as  high  as  a  man. 

Chekhov  suffered  terribly  about  this  time  from 
his  cough.  It  troubled  him  particularly  in  the 
morning.  But  he  made  light  of  it.  He  was  afraid 
of  worrying  his  family.  His  younger  brother  once 
saw  his  handkerchief  spattered  with  blood,  and 
asked  what  it  meant.  Chekhov  seemed  disconcerted 
and  said: 

"Oh,  nothing;  it  is  no  matter.  .  .  .  Don't  tell 
Masha  and  Mother." 

'  The  cough  was  the  reason  for  Chekhov's  going  in 
1894  to  the  Crimea.  He  stayed  in  Yalta,  though  he 
evidently  did  not  like  it  and  longed  to  be  home. 

Chekhov's  activity  in  the  campaign  against  the 
cholera  resulted  in  his  being  elected  a  member  of 
the  Zemstvo.  He  was  keenly  interested  in  every- 
thing to  do  with  the  new  roads  to  be  constructed, 
and  the  new  hospitals  and  schools  it  was  intended 
to  open.  Besides  this  public  work  the  neighbour- 
hood was  indebted  to  him  for  the  making  of  a  high- 
road from  the  station  of  Lopasnya  to  Melihovo,  and 
for  the  building  of  schools  at  Talezh,  Novoselka,  and 
Melihovo.  He  made  the  plans  for  these  schools 
himself,  bought  the  material,  and  superintended  the 
building  of  them.  When  he  talked  about  them  his 
eyes  kindled,  and  it  was  evident  that  if  he  had  had 
the  means  he  would  have  built,  not  three,  but  a 
multitude. 

At  the  opening  of  the  school  at  Novoselka,  the 
peasants  brought  him  the  ikon  and  offered  him  bread 
and  salt.     Chekhov  was  much  embarrassed  in  re- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  27 

spending  to  their  gratitude,  but  his  face  and  his 
shining  eyes  showed  that  he  was  pleased.  Besides 
the  schools  he  built  a  fire-station  for  the  village  and 
a  belfry  for  the  church,  and  ordered  a  cross  made 
of  looking-glass  for  the  cupola,  the  flash  of  which  in 
the  sun  or  moonlight  was  visible  more  than  eight 
miles  away. 

Chekhov  spent  the  year  1894  at  Melihovo,  began 
writing  "The  Seagull,"  and  did  a  great  deal  of  work. 
He  paid  a  visit  to  Tolstoy  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  and 
returned  enchanted  with  the  old  man  and  his  family. 
Chekhov  was  already  changing;  he  looked  haggard, 
older,  sallower.  He  coughed,  he  was  tortured  by 
intestinal  trouble.  Evidently  he  was  now  aware  of 
the  gravity  of  his  illness,  but,  as  before,  made  no  com- 
plaint and  tried  to  hide  it  from  others. 

In  1896  "The  Seagull"  was  performed  at  the 
Alexandrinsky  Theatre  in  Petersburg.  It  was  a 
fiasco.  The  actors  did  not  know  their  parts;  in  the 
theatre  there  was  "a  strained  condition  of  boredom 
and  bewilderment."  The  notices  in  the  press  were 
prejudiced  and  stupid.  Not  wishing  to  see  or  meet 
anyone,  Chekhov  kept  out  of  sight  after  the  per- 
formance, and  by  next  morning  was  in  the  train  on 
his  way  back  to  Melihovo.  The  subsequent  per- 
formances of  "The  Seagull,"  when  the  actors  under- 
stood it,  were  successful. 

Chekhov  had  collected  a  large  number  of  books, 
and  in  1896  he  resolved  to  present  them  to  the  pub- 
lic library  in  his  native  town  of  Taganrog.  Whole 
bales  of  books  were  sent  by  Chekhov  from  Peters- 
burg and  Moscow,  and  lordanov,  the  mayor  of 
Taganrog,  sent  him  lists  of  the  books  needed.  At 
the  same  time,  at  Chekhov's  suggestion,  something 


28  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

like  an  Information  Bureau  was  instituted  in  con- 
nection with  the  Taganrog  Library.  There  were  to 
be  catalogues  of  all  the  important  commercial  firms, 
all  the  existing  regulations  and  government  enact- 
ments on  all  current  questions,  everything,  in  fact, 
which  might  be  of  immediate  service  to  a  reader  in 
any  practical  difficulty.  The  library  at  Taganrog 
has  now  developed  into  a  fine  educational  institu- 
tion, and  is  lodged  in  a  special  building  designed 
and  equipped  for  it  and  dedicated  to  the  memory  of 
Chekhov. 

Chekhov  took  an  active  interest  in  the  census  of 
the  people  in  1896.  It  will  be  remembered  that  he 
had  made  a  census  of  the  whole  convict  population 
of  the  island  of  Sahalin  on  his  own  initiative  and 
at  his  own  expense  in  1890.  Now  he  was  taking 
part  in  a  census  again.  He  studied  peasant  life  in  all 
its  aspects ;  he  was  on  intimate  terms  with  his  peasant 
neighbours,  to  whom  he  was  now  indispensable  as  a 
doctor  and  a  friend  always  ready  to  give  them  good 
counsel. 

Just  before  the  census  was  completed  Chekhov 
was  taken  ill  with  influenza,  but  that  did  not  pre- 
vent his  carrying  out  his  duties.  In  spite  of  head- 
ache, he  went  from  hut  to  hut  and  village  to  village, 
and  then  had  to  work  at  putting  together  his  ma- 
terials. He  was  absolutelv  alone  in  his  work.  The 
Zemsky  Natchalniks,  upon  whom  the  government  re- 
lied principally  to  carry  out  the  census,  were  inert, 
and  for  the  most  part  the  work  was  left  to  private 
initiative. 

In  February,  1897,  Chekhov  was  completely 
engrossed  by  a  project  of  building  a  ''People's 
Palace"  in  Moscow.     "People's  Palaces"  had  not 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  29 

been  thought  of;  the  common  people  spent  their 
leisure  in  drink-shops.  The  "People's  Palace"  in 
Moscow  was  designed  on  broad  principles;  there 
was  to  be  a  library,  a  reading-room,  lecture-rooms, 
a  museum,  a  theatre.  It  was  proposed  to  run  it 
by  a  company  of  shareholders  wath  a  capital  of  half 
a  million  roubles.  Owing  to  various  causes  in  no 
way  connected  with  Chekhov,  this  scheme  came  to 
nothing. 

In  March  he  paid  a  visit  to  Moscow,  where  Suvorin 
was  expecting  him.  He  had  hardly  sat  down  to  din- 
ner at  The  Hermitage  when  he  had  a  sudden  haemor- 
rhage from  the  lungs.  He  was  taken  to  a  private 
hospital,  where  he  remained  till  the  10th  of  April. 
When  his  sister,  who  knew  nothing  of  his  illness, 
arrived  in  Moscow,  she  was  met  by  her  brother  Ivan, 
who  gave  her  a  card  of  admission  to  visit  the  invalid 
at  the  hospital.  On  the  card  were  the  words: 
"Please  don't  tell  father  or  mother."  His  sister 
went  to  the  hospital.  There  casting  a  casual  glance 
at  a  little  table,  she  saw  on  it  a  diagram  of  the  lungs, 
in  which  the  upper  part  of  the  left  lung  was  marked 
with  a  red  pencil.  She  guessed  at  once  that  this 
was  what  was  affected  in  Chekhov's  case.  This 
and  the  sight  of  her  brother  alarmed  her.  Chekhov, 
who  had  always  been  so  gay,  so  full  of  spirits  and 
vitality,  looked  terribly  ill;  he  was  forbidden  to 
move  or  to  talk,  and  had  hardly  the  strength  to  do 
so. 

He  was  declared  to  be  suffering  from  tuberculosis 
of  the  lungs,  and  it  was  essential  to  try  and  Avard 
it  off  at  all  costs,  and  to  escape  the  unwholesome 
northern  spring.  He  recognized  himself  that  this 
was  essential. 


30  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

When  he  left  the  hospital  he  returned  to  Melihovo 
and  prepared  to  go  abroad.  He  went  first  to  Biar- 
ritz, but  there  he  was  met  by  bad  weather.  A  fash- 
ionable, extravagant  way  of  living  did  not  suit  his 
tastes,  and  although  he  was  delighted  with  the  sea  and 
the  life  led  (especially  by  the  children)  on  the  beach, 
he  soon  moved  on  to  Nice.  Here  he  stayed  for  a 
considerable  time  at  the  Pension  Russe  in  the  Rue 
Gounod.  He  seemed  to  be  fully  satisfied  with  the 
life  there.  He  liked  the  warmth  and  the  people  he 
met,  M.  Kovalevsky,  V.  M.  Sobolesky,  V.  T.  Nemiro- 
vitch-Dantchenko,  the  artist  V.  T.  Yakobi  and  I.  N. 
Potapenko.  Prince  A.  I.  Sumbatov  arrived  at  Nice 
too,  and  Chekhov  used  sometimes  to  go  with  him  to 
Monte  Carlo  to  roulette. 

Chekhov  followed  all  that  he  had  left  behind  in 
Russia  with  keen  attention:  he  was  anxious  about 
the  Chronicle  of  Surgery,  which  he  had  more  than 
once  saved  from  ruin,  made  arrangements  about  Mel- 
ihovo, and  so  on. 

He  spent  the  autumn  and  winter  in  Nice,  and  in 
February,  1898,  meant  to  go  to  Africa.  He  wanted 
to  visit  Algiers  and  Tunis,  but  Kovalevsky,  with 
whom  he  meant  to  travel,  fell  ill,  and  he  had  to  give 
up  the  project.  He  contemplated  a  visit  to  Corsica, 
but  did  not  carry  out  that  plan  either,  as  he  was  taken 
seriously  ill  himself.  A  wretched  dentist  used  con- 
taminated forceps  in  extracting  a  tooth,  and  Chekhov 
was  attacked  by  periostitis  in  a  malignant  form.  In 
his  own  words,  "he  was  in  such  pain  that  he  climbed 
up  the  wall." 

As  soon  as  the  spring  had  come  he  felt  an  irresisti- 
ble yearning  for  Russia.  He  was  weary  of  enforced 
idleness;  he  missed  the  snow  and  the  Russian  coun- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  31 

try,  and  at  the  same  time  he  was  depressed  at  having 
gained  no  weight  in  spite  of  the  climate,  good  nourish- 
ment, and  idleness. 

While  he  was  at  Nice  France  was  in  the  throes 
of  the  Dreyfus  affair.  Chekhov  began  studying  the 
Dreyfus  and  Zola  cases  from  shorthand  notes,  and 
becoming  convinced  of  the  innocence  of  both,  wrote 
a  heated  letter  to  Suvorin,  which  led  to  a  coolness  be- 
tween them. 

He  spent  March,  1898,  in  Paris.  He  sent  three 
hundred  and  nineteen  volumes  of  French  literature 
from  Paris  to  the  public  library  at  Taganrog. 

The  lateness  of  the  spring  in  Russia  forced 
Chekhov  to  remain  in  Paris  till  May,  when  he  re- 
turned to  Melihovo.  Melihovo  became  gay  and 
lively  on  his  arrival.  Visitors  began  coming  again; 
he  was  as  hospitable  as  ever,  but  he  was  quieter,  no 
longer  jested  as  in  the  past,  and  perhaps  owing  to  his 
illness  talked  little.  But  he  still  took  as  much  pleas- 
ure in  his  roses. 

After  a  comparatively  good  summer  there  came 
days  of  continual  rain,  and  on  the  14th  of  Septem- 
ber Chekhov  went  away  to  Yalta.  He  had  to  choose 
between  Nice  and  Yalta.  He  did  not  want  to  go 
abroad,  and  preferred  the  Crimea,  reckoning  that  he 
might  possibly  seize  an  opportunity  to  pay  a  brief 
visit  to  Moscow,  where  his  plays  were  to  appear  at 
the  Art  Theatre.  His  choice  did  not  disappoint  him. 
That  autumn  in  Yalta  was  splendid;  he  felt  well 
there,  and  the  progress  of  his  disease  led  him  to  set- 
tle in  Yalta  permanently. 

Chekhov  obtained  a  piece  of  land  at  Autka,  and 
the  same  autumn  began  building.  He  spent  whole 
days  superintending  the  building.      Stone  and  plaster 


32  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

was  brought,  Turks  and  Tatars  dug  the  ground  and 
laid  the  foundation,  while  he  planted  little  trees  and 
watched  with  fatherly  anxiety  every  new  shoot  on 
them.  Every  stone,  every  tree  there  is  eloquent  of 
Chekhov's  creative  energy.  That  same  autumn  he 
bought  the  little  property  of  Kutchuka.  It  was 
twenty-four  miles  from  Yalta,  and  attracted  him  by 
its  wildness  and  primitive  beauty.  To  reach  it  one 
had  to  drive  along  the  road  at  a  giddy  height.  He 
began  once  more  dreaming  and  drawing  plans.  The 
possible  future  began  to  take  a  different  shape  to 
him  now,  and  he  was  already  dreaming  of  moving 
from  Melihovo,  farming  and  gardening  and  living 
there  as  in  the  country.  He  wanted  to  have  hens, 
cows,  a  horse  and  donkeys,  and,  of  course,  all  of  this 
would  have  been  quite  possible  and  might  have  been 
realized  if  he  had  not  been  slowly  dying.  His  dreams 
remained  dreams,  and  Kutchuka  stands  uninhabited 
to  this  day. 

The  winter  of  1898  was  extremely  severe  in  the 
Crimea.  The  cold,  the  snow,  the  stormy  sea,  and 
the  complete  lack  of  people  akin  to  him  in  spirit 
and  of  "interesting  women"  wearied  Chekhov;  he 
began  to  be  depressed.  He  was  irresistibly  drawn 
to  the  north,  and  began  to  fancy  that  if  he  moved 
for  the  winter  to  Moscow,  where  his  plays  were  be- 
ino;  acted  with  such  success  and  where  evervthinor  was 
SO  full  of  interest  for  him,  it  would  be  no  worse  for 
his  health  than  staying  in  Yalta,  and  he  began  dream- 
ing of  buying  a  house  in  Moscow.  He  wanted  at 
one  moment  to  get  something  small  and  snug  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Kursk  Station,  where  it  might  be 
possible  to  stay  the  three  winter  months  in  every 
comfort;    but   when   such   a   house   was   found   his 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  33 

mood  changed  and  he  resigned  himself  to  life  at 
Yalta. 

The  January  and  February  of  1899  were  particu- 
larly irksome  to  Chekhov:  he  suffered  from  an  in- 
testinal trouble  which  poisoned  his  existence.  More- 
over consumptive  patients  from  all  over  Russia  be- 
gan appealing  to  him  to  assist  them  to  come  to  Yalta. 
These  invalids  were  almost  always  poor,  and  on 
reaching  Yalta  mostly  ended  their  lives  in  miserable 
conditions,  pining  for  their  native  place.  Chekhov 
exerted  himself  on  behalf  of  everyone,  printed  ap- 
peals in  the  papers,  collected  money,  and  did  his  ut- 
most to  alleviate  their  condition. 

After  the  unfavourable  winter  came  an  exquisite 
warm  spring,  and  on  the  12th  of  April  Chekhov  was 
in  Moscow  and  by  May  in  Melihovo.  His  father 
had  died  the  previous  October,  and  with  his  death 
a  great  link  with  the  place  was  broken.  The  con- 
sciousness of  having  to  go  away  early  in  the  autumn 
gradually  brought  Chekhov  to  decide  to  sell  the 
place. 

On  the  25th  of  August  he  went  back  to  his  ow;n 
villa  at  Yalta,  and  soon  afterwards  Melihovo  was  sold, 
and  his  mother  and  sister  joined  him.  During  the 
last  four  and  a  half  years  of  his  life  Chekhov's  health 
grew  rapidly  worse.  His  chief  interest  was  centred 
in  Moscow,  in  the  Art  Theatre,  which  had  just  been 
started,  and  the  greater  part  of  his  dramatic  work  was 
done  during  this  period. 

Chekhov  was  ill  all  the  winter  of  1900,  and  only 
felt  better  towards  the  spring.  During  those  long 
winter  months  he  wrote  "In  the  Ravine."  The  de- 
testable spring  of  that  year  affected  his  mood  and 
his   health   even   more.      Snow  fell  on   the  5th  of 


34  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

March,  and  this  had  a  shattering  effect  on  him.  In 
April  he  was  again  very  ill.  An  attack  of  intestinal 
trouble  prevented  him  from  eating,  drinking,  or 
working.  As  soon  as  it  was  over  Chekhov,  home- 
sick for  the  north,  set  off  for  Moscow,  but  there  he 
was  met  by  severe  weather.  Returning  in  August 
to  Yalta,  he  wrote  "The  Three  Sisters." 

He  spent  the  autumn  in  Moscow,  and  at  the  be- 
ginning of  December  went  to  the  French  Riviera,  set- 
tled in  Nice,  and  dreamed  again  of  a  visit  to  Africa, 
but  went  instead  to  Rome.  Here,  as  usual,  he  met 
with  severe  weather.  Early  in  February  he  re- 
turned to  Yalta.  That  year  there  was  a  soft,  sunny 
spring.  Chekhov  spent  whole  days  in  the  open  air, 
engaged  in  his  favourite  occupations ;  he  planted  and 
pruned  trees,  looked  after  his  garden,  ordered  all 
sorts  of  seeds,  and  watched  them  coming  up.  At 
the  same  time  he  was  working  on  behalf  of  the  in- 
valids coming  to  Yalta,  who  appealed  to  him  for  help, 
and  also  completing  the  library  he  had  founded  at 
Taganrog,  and  planning  to  open  a  picture  gallery 
there. 

In  May,  1901,  Chekhov  went  to  Moscow  and  was 
thoroughly  examined  by  a  physician,  who  urged  him 
to  go  at  once  to  Switzerland  or  to  take  a  koumiss  cure. 
Chekhov  preferred  the  latter. 

On  the  25th  of  May  he  married  Olga  Knipper,  one 
of  the  leading  actresses  at  the  Art  Theatre,  and  with 
her  went  off  to  the  province  of  Ufa  for  the  koumiss 
cure.  On  the  way  they  had  to  wait  twenty-four  hours 
for  a  steamer,  in  very  unpleasant  surroundings,  at  a 
place  called  Pyany  Bor  ("Drunken  Market"),  in  the 
province  of  Vyatka. 

In  the  autumn  of  1901  Tolstoy  was  staying,  for 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  35 

the  sake  of  his  heahh,  at  Gaspra.  Chekhov  was 
very  fond  of  him  and  frequently  visited  him.  Alto- 
gether that  autumn  was  an  eventful  one  for  him: 
Kuprin,  Bunin  and  Gorky  visited  the  Crimea;  the 
writer  Elpatyevsky  settled  there  also,  and  Chekhov 
felt  fairly  well.  Tolstoy's  illness  was  the  centre  of 
general  attention,  and  Chekhov  was  very  uneasy  about 
him. 

In  1902  there  was  suddenly  a  change  for  the 
worse:  violent  haemorrhage  exhausted  him  till  the  be- 
ginning of  February;  he  was  for  over  a  month  con- 
fined to  his  study.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the 
incident  of  Gorky's  election  to  the  Academy  and  sub- 
sequent expulsion  from  it  led  Chekhov  to  write  a 
letter  to  the  Royal  President  of  the  Academy  asking 
that  his  own  name  should  be  struck  off  the  list  of 
Academicians. 

Chekhov  had  hardly  recovered  when  his  wife  was 
taken  seriously  ill.  When  she  was  a  little  better 
he  made  a  tour  by  the  Volga  and  the  Kama  as  far 
as  Perm.  On  his  return  he  settled  with  his  wife 
in  a  summer  villa  not  far  from  Moscow;  he  spent 
July  there  and  returned  home  to  Yalta  in  August. 
But  the  longing  for  a  life  of  movement  and  culture, 
the  desire  to  be  nearer  to  the  theatre,  drew  him  to 
the  north  again,  and  in  September  he  was  back  in 
Moscow.  Here  he  was  not  left  in  peace  for  one 
minute;  swarms  of  visitors  jostled  each  other  from 
morning  till  night.  Such  a  life  exhausted  him;  he 
ran  away  from  it  to  Yalta  in  December,  but  did  not 
escape  it  there.  His  cough  was  worse;  every  day 
he  had  a  high  temperature,  and  these  symptoms  were 
followed  by  an  attack  of  pleurisy.  He  did  not  get 
up  all  through  the  Christmas  holidays;  he  still  had 


36  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

an  agonizing  cough,  and  it  was  in  this  enforced 
idleness  that  he  thought  out  his  play  "The  Cherry 
Orchard." 

It  is  quite  possible  that  if  Chekhov  had  taken  care 
of  himself  his  disease  would  not  have  developed  so 
rapidly  or  proved  fatal.  The  feverish  energy  of  his 
temperament,  his  readiness  to  respond  to  every  im- 
pression, and  his  thirst  for  activity,  drove  him  from 
south  to  north  and  back  again,  regardless  of  his 
health  and  of  the  climate.  Like  all  invalids,  he 
ought  to  have  gone  on  living  in  the  same  place,  at 
Nice  or  at  Yalta,  until  he  was  better,  but  he  lived 
exactly  as  though  he  had  been  in  good  health.  When 
he  arrived  in  the  north  he  was  always  excited  and 
absorbed  by  what  was  going  on,  and  this  exhilara- 
tion he  mistook  for  an  improvement  in  his  health; 
but  he  had  only  to  return  to  Yalta  for  the  reaction 
to  set  in,  and  it  would  seem  to  him  at  once  that  his 
case  was  hopeless,  that  the  Crimea  had  no  beneficial 
effect  on  consumptives,  and  that  the  climate  was 
wretched. 

The  spring  of  1903  passed  fairly  favourably.  He 
recovered  sufficiently  to  go  to  Moscow  and  even  to 
Petersburg.  On  returning  from  Petersburg  he  be- 
gan preparing  to  go  to  Switzerland.  But  his  state  of 
health  was  such  that  his  doctor  in  Moscow  advised 
him  to  give  up  the  idea  of  Switzerland  and  even  of 
Yalta,  and  to  stay  somewhere  not  very  far  from  Mos- 
cow. He  followed  this  advice  and  settled  at  Nar. 
Now  that  it  was  proposed  that  he  should  stay  the 
winter  in  the  north,  all  that  he  had  created  in  Yalta 
— his  house  and  his  garden — seemed  unnecessary 
and  objectless.  In  the  end  he  returned  to  Yalta  and 
set  to  work  on  "The  Cherry  Orchard." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  37 

In  October,  1903,  the  play  was  finished  and  he 
set  off  to  produce  it  himself  in  Moscow.  He  spent 
days  at  a  time  in  the  Art  Theatre,  producing  his 
"Cherry  Orchard,"  and  incidentally  supervising  the 
setting  and  performance  of  the  plays  of  other 
authors.  He  gave  advice  and  criticized,  was  excited 
and  enthusiastic. 

On  the  17th  of  January,  1904,  "The  Cherry 
Orchard"  was  produced  for  the  first  time.  The  first 
performance  was  the  occasion  of  the  celebration  of 
the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  Chekhov's  literar}^  ac- 
tivity. A  great  number  of  addresses  were  read  and 
speeches  were  made.  Chekhov  was  many  times 
called  before  the  curtain,  and  this  expression  of  uni- 
versal sympathy  exhausted  him  to  such  a  degree  that 
the  very  day  after  the  performance  he  began  to  think 
with  relief  of  going  back  to  Yalta,  where  he  spent  the 
following  spring. 

His  health  was  completely  shattered,  and  every- 
one who  saw  him  secretly  thought  the  end  was  not 
far  off;  but  the  nearer  Chekhov  was  to  the  end,  the 
less  he  seemed  to  realize  it.  Ill  as  he  was,  at  the 
beginning  of  May  he  set  off  for  Moscow.  He  was 
terribly  ill  all  the  way  on  the  journey,  and  on  ar- 
rival took  to  his  bed  at  once.  He  was  laid  up  till 
June. 

On  the  3rd  of  June  he  set  off  with  his  wife  for  a 
cure  abroad  to  the  Black  Forest,  and  settled  in  a 
little  spa  called  Badenweiler.  He  was  dying,  al- 
though he  wrote  to  everyone  that  he  had  almost  re- 
covered, and  that  health  was  coming  back  to  him 
not  by  ounces  but  by  hundredweights.  He  was 
dying,  but  he  spent  the  time  dreaming  of  going  to 
the   Italian    lakes   and   returning   to   Yalta   by   sea 


38  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

from  Trieste,  and  was  already  making  inquiries 
about  the  steamers  and  the  times  they  stopped  at 
Odessa. 

He  died  on  the  2nd  of  July. 

His  body  was  taken  to  Moscow  and  buried  in 
the  Novodyevitchy  Monastery,  beside  his  father's 
tomb. 


LETTERS 
To  HIS  Brother  Mihail. 

Taganrog, 

July  1,  1876. 

Dear  Brother  Misha, 

I  got  your  letter  when  I  was  fearfully  bored 
and  was  sitting  at  the  gate  yawning,  and  so  you 
can  judge  how  welcome  that  immense  letter  was. 
Your  writing  is  good,  and  in  the  whole  letter  I  have 
not  found  one  mistake  in  spelling.  But  one  thing 
I  don't  like:  why  do  you  style  yourself  "your  worth- 
less and  insignificant  brother"?  You  recognize 
your  insignificance?  .  .  .  Recognize  it  before 
God;  perhaps,  too,  in  the  presence  of  beauty,  intel- 
ligence, nature,  but  not  before  men.  Among  men 
you  must  be  conscious  of  your  dignity.  Why,  you 
are  not  a  rascal,  you  are  an  honest  man,  aren't  you? 
Well,  respect  yourself  as  an  honest  man  and  know 
that  an  honest  man  is  not  something  worthless. 
Don't  confound  "being  humble"  with  "recognizing 
one's  worthlessness."   .   .   . 

It  is  a  good  thing  that  you  read.  Acquire  the 
habit  of  doing  so.  In  time  you  will  come  to  value 
that  habit.  Madame  Beecher-Stowe  has  wrung  tears 
from  your  eyes?  I  read  her  once,  and  six  months 
ago  read  her  again  with  the  object  of  studying  her 
— and  after  reading  I  had  an  unpleasant  sensation 
which  mortals  feel  after  eating  too  many  raisins  or 

39 


40  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

currants.  .  .  .  Read  "Don  Quixote."  It  is  a  fine 
thing.  It  is  by  Cervantes,  who  is  said  to  be  almost 
on  a  level  with  Shakespeare.  I  advise  my  brothers 
to  read — if  they  haven't  already  done  so — Turgenev's 
"Hamlet  and  Don  Quixote."  You  won't  under- 
stand it,  my  dear.  If  you  want  to  read  a  book  of 
travel  that  won't  bore  you,  read  Gontcharov's  "The 
Frigate  Pallada." 

...  I  am  going  to  bring  with  me  a  boarder  who 
will  pay  twenty  roubles  a  month  and  live  under  our 
general  supervision.  Though  even  twenty  roubles 
is  not  enough  if  one  considers  the  price  of  food  in 
Moscow  and  mother's  weakness  for  feeding  boarders 
with  righteous  zeal.* 

To  HIS  Cousin,  Mihail  Chekhov. 

Taganrog, 

May  10,  1877. 

...  If  I  send  letters  to  my  mother,  care  of  you, 
please  give  them  to  her  when  you  are  alone  with 
her;  there  are  things  in  life  which  one  can  confide 
in  one  person  only,  whom  one  trusts.  It  is  because 
of  this  that  I  write  to  my  mother  without  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  others,  for  whom  my  secrets  are  quite 
uninteresting,  or,  rather,  unnecessary.  .  .  .  My 
second  request  is  of  more  importance.  Please  go 
on  comforting  my  mother,  who  is  both  physically 
and  morally  broken.  She  has  found  in  you  not 
merely  a  nephew  but  a  great  deal  more  and  better 
than  a  nephew.  My  mother's  character  is  such  that 
the  moral  support  of  others  is  a  great  help  to  her. 

*  This  letter  was  written  by  Chekhov  when  he  was  in  the  fifth 
class  of  the  Taganrog  high  school. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  41 

It  is  a  silly  request,  isn't  it?  But  you  will  under- 
stand, especially  as  I  have  said  "moral,"  i.e.,  spiritual 
support.  There  is  no  one  in  this  wicked  world 
dearer  to  us  than  our  mother,  and  so  you  will  greatly 
oblige  your  humble  servant  by  comforting  his  worn- 
out  and  weary  mother.   .   .   . 

To  HIS  Uncle,  M.  G.  Chekhov. 

Moscow, 
1885. 

...  I  could  not  come  to  see  you  last  summer 
because  I  took  the  place  of  a  district  doctor  friend 
of  mine  who  went  away  for  his  holiday,  but  this  year 
I  hope  to  travel  and  therefore  to  see  you.  Last  De- 
cember I  had  an  attack  of  spitting  blood,  and  decided 
to  take  some  money  from  the  Literary  Fund  and  go 
abroad  for  my  health.  I  am  a  little  better  now,  but 
I  still  think  that  I  shall  have  to  go  away.  And  when- 
ever I  go  abroad,  or  to  the  Crimea,  or  to  the  Cauca- 
sus, I  will  go  through  Taganrog. 

...  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  join  you  in  being  of 
service  to  my  native  Taganrog.  ...  I  am  sure 
that  if  my  work  had  been  there  I  should  have  been 
calmer,  more  cheerful,  in  better  health,  but  evidently 
it  is  my  fate  to  remain  in  Moscow\  My  home  and 
my  career  are  here.  I  have  work  of  two  sorts.  As 
a  doctor  I  should  have  grown  slack  in  Taganrog  and 
forgotten  my  medicine,  but  in  Moscow  a  doctor  has 
no  time  to  go  to  the  club  and  play  cards.  As  a  writer 
I  am  no  use  except  in  Moscow  or  Petersburg. 

My  medical  work  is  progressing  little  by  little. 
I  go  on  steadily  treating  patients.  Every  day  I  have 
to  spend  more  than  a  rouble  on  cabs.     I  have  a  lot 


42  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

of  friends  and  therefore  many  patients.  Half  of 
them  I  have  to  treat  for  nothing,  but  the  other  half 
pay  me  three  or  five  roubles  a  visit.  ...  I  need 
hardly  say  I  have  not  made  a  fortune  yet,  and  it  will 
be  a  long  time  before  I  do,  but  I  live  tolerably  and 
need  nothing.  So  long  as  I  am  alive  and  well  the 
position  of  the  family  is  secure.  I  have  bought  new 
furniture,  hired  a  good  piano,  keep  two  servants, 
give  little  evening  parties  with  music  and  singing. 
I  have  no  debts  and  do  not  want  to  borrow.  Till 
quite  recently  we  used  to  run  an  account  at  the  butch- 
er's and  grocer's,  but  now  I  have  stopped  even  that, 
and  we  pay  cash  for  everything.  What  will  come 
later,  there  is  no  knowing ;  as  it  is  we  have  nothing  to 
complain  of.  .   .   . 


To  N.  A.  Leikin. 


Moscow, 
October,  1885. 


.  .  .  You  advise  me  to  go  to  Petersburg,  and  say 
that  Petersburg  is  not  China.  I  know  it  is  not, 
and  as  you  are  aware,  I  have  long  realized  the  neces- 
sity of  going  there;  but  what  am  I  to  do?  Owing 
to  the  fact  that  we  are  a  large  family,  I  never  have 
a  ten-rouble  note  to  spare,  and  to  go  there,  even 
if  I  did  it  in  the  most  uncomfortable  and  beggarly 
way,  would  cost  at  least  fifty  roubles.  How  am  I 
to  get  the  money?  I  can't  squeeze  it  out  of  my 
family  and  don't  think  I  ought  to.  If  I  were  to 
cut  down  our  two  courses  at  dinner  to  one,  I  should 
begin  to  pine  away  from  pangs  of  conscience.  .  .  . 
Allah  only  knows  how  difficult  it  is  for  me  to  keep 
my  balance,  and  how  easy  it  would  be  for  me  to 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  43 

slip  and  lose  my  equilibrium.  I  fancy  that  if  next 
month  I  should  earn  twenty  or  thirty  roubles  less, 
my  balance  would  be  gone,  and  I  should  be  in  diffi- 
culties. I  am  awfully  apprehensive  about  money 
matters  and,  owing  to  this  quite  uncommercial 
cowardice  in  pecuniary  affairs,  I  avoid  loans  and 
payments  on  account.  I  am  not  difficult  to  move. 
If  I  had  money  I  should  fly  from  one  city  to  another 
endlessly. 

To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Moscow, 
February  21,  1886. 

.  .  .  Thank  you  for  the  flattering  things  you  say 
about  my  work  and  for  having  published  my  story 
so  soon.  You  can  judge  yourself  how  refreshing, 
even  inspiring,  the  kind  attention  of  an  experienced 
and  gifted  writer  like  yourself  has  been  to  me. 

I  agree  with  what  you  say  about  the  end  of  my 
story  which  you  have  cut  out;  thank  you  for  the  help- 
ful advice.  I  have  been  writing  for  the  last  six  years, 
but  you  are  the  first  person  who  has  taken  the  trouble 
to  advise  and  explain. 

...  I  do  not  write  very  much — not  more  than 
two  or  three  short  stories  weekly. 

To  D.  V.  Grigorovitch. 

Moscow, 
March  28,  1886. 

Your  letter,  my  kind,  fervently  beloved  bringer 
of  good  tidings,  struck  me  like  a  flash  of  lightning. 
I  almost  burst  into  tears,  I  was  overwhelmed,  and 
now  I  feel  it  has  left  a  deep  trace  in  my  soul !     May 


44  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

God  show  the  same  tender  kindness  to  you  in  your 
age  as  you  have  shown  me  in  my  youth!  I  can 
find  neither  words  nor  deeds  to  thank  you.  You 
know  with  what  eyes  ordinary  people  look  at  the 
elect  such  as  you,  and  so  you  can  judge  what  your 
letter  means  for  my  self-esteem.  It  is  better  than 
any  diploma,  and  for  a  writer  who  is  just  beginning 
it  is  payment  both  for  the  present  and  the  future.  I 
am  almost  dazed.  I  have  no  power  to  judge  whether 
I  deserve  this  high  reward.  I  only  repeat  that  it  has 
overwhelmed  me. 

If  I  have  a  gift  which  one  ought  to  respect,  I 
confess  before  the  pure  candour  of  your  heart  that 
hitherto  I  have  not  respected  it.  I  felt  that  I  had 
a  gift,  but  I  had  got  into  the  habit  of  thinking  that 
it  was  insignificant.  Purely  external  causes  are 
sufficient  to  make  one  unjust  to  oneself,  suspicious, 
and  morbidly  sensitive.  And  as  I  realize  now  I 
have  always  had  plenty  of  such  causes.  All  my 
friends  and  relatives  have  always  taken  a  condescend- 
ing tone  to  my  writing,  and  never  ceased  urging 
me  in  a  friendly  way  not  to  give  up  real  work  for 
the  sake  of  scribbling.  I  have  hundreds  of  friends 
in  Moscow,  and  among  them  a  dozen  or  two  writ- 
ers, but  I  cannot  recall  a  single  one  who  reads  me 
or  considers  me  an  artist.  In  Moscow  there  is  a 
so-called  Literary  Circle :  talented  people  and  medioc- 
rities of  all  ages  and  colours  gather  once  a  week  in 
a  private  room  of  a  restaurant  and  exercise  their 
tongues.  If  I  went  there  and  read  them  a  single 
passage  of  your  letter,  they  would  laugh  in  my  face. 
In  the  course  of  the  five  years  that  I  have  been 
knocking  about  from  one  newspaper  office  to  another 
I  have  had  time  to  assimilate  the  general  view  of 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  45 

my  literary  insignificance.  I  soon  got  used  to 
looking  clown  upon  my  work,  and  so  it  has  gone 
from  bad  to  worse.  That  is  the  first  reason.  The 
second  is  that  I  am  a  doctor,  and  am  up  to  my  ears 
in  medical  work,  so  that  the  proverb  about  trying  to 
catch  two  hares  has  given  to  no  one  more  sleepless 
nights  than  me. 

I  am  writing  all  this  to  you  in  order  to  excuse 
this  grievous  sin  a  little  before  you.  Hitherto  my 
attitude  to  my  literary  work  has  been  frivolous,  heed- 
less, casual.  I  don't  remember  a  single  story  over 
which  I  have  spent  more  than  twenty-four  hours, 
and  "The  Huntsman,"  which  you  liked,  I  wrote  in 
the  bathing-shed!  I  wrote  my  stories  as  reporters 
write  their  notes  about  fires,  mechanically,  half-un- 
consciously,  taking  no  thought  of  the  reader  or  my- 
self. ...  I  wrote  and  did  all  I  could  not  to  waste 
upon  the  story  the  scenes  and  images  dear  to  me 
which — God  knows  why — I  have  treasured  and  kept 
carefully  hidden. 

The  first  impulse  to  self-criticism  was  given  me 
by  a  very  kind  and,  to  the  best  of  my  belief,  sincere 
letter  from  Suvorin.  I  began  to  think  of  writing 
something  decent,  but  I  still  had  no  faith  in  my 
being  any  good  as  a  waiter.  And  then,  unexpected 
and  undreamed  of,  came  your  letter.  Forgive  the 
comparison:  it  had  on  me  the  effect  of  a  Governor's 
order  to  clear  out  of  the  town  within  twenty-four 
hours — i.e.,  I  suddenly  felt  an  imperative  need  to 
hurr}%  to  make  haste  and  get  out  of  where  I  have 
stuck.   .   .   . 

I  agree  with  you  in  everj^thing.  When  I  saw 
"The  Witch"  in  print  I  felt  myself  the  cynicism  of 
the  points  to  which  you  call  my  attention.     They 


46  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

would  not  have  been  there  had  I  written  this  story 
in  three  or  four  days  instead  of  in  one. 

I  shall  put  an  end  to  working  against  time,  but 
cannot  do  so  just  yet.  ...  It  is  impossible  to  get 
out  of  the  rut  I  have  got  into.  I  have  nothing 
against  going  hungry,  as  I  have  done  in  the  past, 
but  it  is  not  a  question  of  myself.  ...  I  give  to 
literature  my  spare  time,  two  or  three  hours  a  day 
and  a  bit  of  the  night,  that  is,  time  which  is  of  no 
use  except  for  short  things.  In  the  summer,  when 
I  have  more  time  and  have  fewer  expenses,  I  will 
start  on  some  serious  work. 

I  cannot  put  my  real  name  on  the  book  because 
it  is  too  late:  the  design  for  the  cover  is  ready  and 
the  book  printed.*  Many  of  my  Petersburg  friends 
advised  me,  even  before  you  did,  not  to  spoil  the 
book  by  a  pseudonym,  but  I  did  not  listen  to  them, 
probably  out  of  vanity.  I  dislike  my  book  very 
much.  It's  a  hotch-potch,  a  disorderly  medley  of  the 
poor  stuff  I  wrote  as  a  student,  plucked  by  the  censor 
and  by  the  editors  of  comic  papers.  I  am  sure  that 
many  people  will  be  disappointed  when  they  read 
it.  Had  I  known  that  I  had  readers  and  that  you 
were  watching  me,  I  would  not  have  published  this 
book. 

I  rest  all  my  hopes  on  the  future.  I  am  only 
twenty-six.  Perhaps  I  shall  succeed  in  doing  some- 
thing, though  time  flies  fast. 

Forgive  my  long  letter  and  do  not  blame  a  man 
because,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  he  has  made 
bold  to  treat  himself  to  the  pleasure  of  writing  to 
Grigorovitch. 

Send  me  your  photograph,  if  possible.     I  am  so 

*  "Motley  Tales"  is  meant. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  47 

overwhelmed  with  your  kindness  that  I  feel  as  though 
I  should  like  to  write  a  whole  ream  to  you.  God 
grant  you  health  and  happiness,  and  believe  in  the 
sincerity  of  your  deeply  respectful  and  grateful 

A.  Chekhov. 


To  N.  A.  Leikin. 


Moscow, 
April  6,  1886. 


...  I  am  ill.  Spitting  of  blood  and  weakness. 
I  am  not  writing  anything.  ...  If  I  don't  sit  down 
to  write  to-morrow,  you  must  forgive  me — I  shall 
not  send  you  a  story  for  the  Easter  number.  I  ought 
to  go  to  the  South  but  I  have  no  money.  ...  I  am 
afraid  to  submit  myself  to  be  sounded  by  my  col- 
leagues. I  am  inclined  to  think  it  is  not  so  much 
my  lungs  as  my  throat  that  is  at  fault.  ...  I  have 
no  fever. 

To  Madame  M.  V.  Kiselyov. 

Babkino, 
June,  1886. 

LOVE  UNRIPPLED* 

(a  novel) 

Part  I. 

It  was  noon.  .  .  .  The  setting  sun  with  its 
crimson,  fiery  rays  gilded  the  tops  of  pines,  oaks, 
and  fir-trees.  ...  It  was  still;  onlv  in  the  air  the 
birds  were  singing,  and  in  the  distance  a  hungry 

*  Parody  of  a  feminine  novel. 


48  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

wolf  howled  mournfully.   .   .   .     The  driver  turned 
round  and  said: 

"More  snow  has  fallen,  sir," 

"What?" 

*T  say,  more  snow  has  fallen." 

"Ah!" 

Vladimir  Sergeitch  Tabatchin,  who  is  the  hero  of 
our  story,  looked  for  the  last  time  at  the  sun  and 
expired. 

****** 

A  week  passed.  .  .  .  Birds  and  corncrakes 
hovered,  whistling,  over  a  newly-made  grave.  The 
sun  was  shining.  A  young  widow,  bathed  in  tears, 
was  standing  by,  and  in  her  grief  sopping  her  whole 
handkerchief.  .  .  . 


Moscow, 
September  21,  1886. 

...  It  is  not  much  fun  to  be  a  great  writer.  To 
begin  with,  it's  a  dreary  life.  Work  from  morning 
till  night  and  not  much  to  show  for  it.  Money  is  as 
scarce  as  cats'  tears.  I  don't  know  how  it  is  with 
Zola  and  Shtchedrin,  but  in  my  flat  it  is  cold  and 
smoky.  .  .  .  They  give  me  cigarettes,  as  before, 
on  holidays  only.  Impossible  cigarettes!  Hard, 
damp,  sausage-like.  Before  I  begin  to  smoke  I  light 
the  lamp,  dry  the  cigarette  over  it,  and  only  then  I 
begin  on  it;  the  lamp  smokes,  the  cigarette  splutters 
and  turns  brown,  I  bum  my  fingers  ...  it  is  enough 
to  make  one  shoot  oneself! 

...  I  am  more  or  less  ill,  and  am  gradually  turn- 
ing into  a  dried  dragon-fly. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  49 

...  I  go  about  as  festive  as  though  it  were  my 
birthday,  but  to  judge  from  the  critical  glances  of 
the  lady  cashier  at  the  Budilnik,  I  am  not  dressed 
in  the  height  of  fashion,  and  my  clothes  are  not 
brand-new.      I  go  in  buses,  not  in  cabs. 

But  being  a  writer  has  its  good  points.  In  the 
first  place,  my  book,  I  hear,  is  going  rather  well; 
secondly,  in  October  I  shall  have  money;  thirdly,  I 
am  beginning  to  reap  laurels:  at  the  refreshment  bars 
people  point  at  me  with  their  fingers,  they  pay  me 
little  attentions  and  treat  me  to  sandwiches.  Korsh 
caught  me  in  his  theatre  and  straight  away  presented 
me  wdth  a  free  pass.  .  .  .  My  medical  colleagues 
sigh  when  they  meet  me,  begin  to  talk  of  literature 
and  assure  me  that  they  are  sick  of  medicine.  And 
so  on.   .   .   . 

September  29. 

.  .  .  Life  is  grey,  there  are  no  happy  people  to 
be  seen.  .  .  .  Life  is  a  nasty  business  for  everyone. 
When  I  am  serious  I  begin  to  think  that  people  who 
have  an  aversion  for  death  are  illogical.  So  far  as 
I  understand  the  order  of  things,  life  consists  of 
nothing  but  horrors,  squabbles,  and  trivialities  mixed 
together  or  alternating! 

December  3. 

This  morning  an  individual  sent  by  Prince  Urusov 
turned  up  and  asked  me  for  a  short  story  for  a  sport- 
ing magazine  edited  by  the  said  Prince.  I  refused, 
of  course,  as  I  now  refuse  all  who  come  with  sup- 
plications to  the  foot  of  my  pedestal.  In  Russia 
there  are  now  two  unattainable  heights:  Mount  El- 
borus and  myself. 


50  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

The  Prince's  envoy  was  deeply  disappointed  by 
my  refusal,  nearly  died  of  grief,  and  finally  begged 
me  to  recommend  him  some  writers  who  are 
versed  in  sport.  I  thought  a  little,  and  very  oppor- 
tunely remembered  a  lady  writer  who  dreams  of 
glory  and  has  for  the  last  year  been  ill  with  envy  of 
my  literary  fame.  In  short,  I  gave  him  your  ad- 
dress. .  .  .  You  might  write  a  story  "The 
Wounded  Doe" — you  remember,  how  the  huntsmen 
wound  a  doe;  she  looks  at  them  with  human  eyes, 
and  no  one  can  bring  himself  to  kill  her.  It's  not  a 
bad  subject,  but  dangerous  because  it  is  difficult  to 
avoid  sentimentality — you  must  write  it  like  a  re- 
port, without  pathetic  phrases,  and  begin  like  this: 
"On  such  and  such  a  date  the  huntsmen  in  the 
Daraganov  forest  wounded  a  young  doe.  .  .  ." 
And  if  you  drop  a  tear  you  will  strip  the  subject 
of  its  severity  and  of  everything  worth  attention  in 
it. 

December  13. 

.  .  .  With  your  permission  I  steal  out  of  your 
last  two  letters  to  my  sister  two  descriptions  of  na- 
ture for  my  stories.  It  is  curious  that  you  have  quite 
a  masculine  way  of  writing.  In  every  line  (except 
when  dealing  with  children)  you  are  a  man!  This, 
of  course,  ought  to  Hatter  your  vanity,  for  speaking 
generally,  men  are  a  thousand  times  better  than 
women,  and  superior  to  them. 

In  Petersburg  I  was  resting — i.e.,  for  days  together 
I  was  rushing  about  town  paying  calls  and  listening 
to  compliments  which  my  soul  abhors.  Alas  and 
alack!  In  Petersburg  I  am  becoming  fashionable 
like   Nana.     While   Korolenko,   who  is  serious,  is 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  51 

hardly  known  to  the  editors,  my  twaddle  is  being 
read  by  all  Petersburg.  Even  the  senator  G.  reads 
me.  ...  It  is  gratifying,  but  my  literary  feeling  is 
wounded.  I  feel  ashamed  of  the  public  which  runs 
after  lap-dogs  simply  because  it  fails  to  notice 
elephants,  and  I  am  deeply  convinced  that 
not  a  soul  will  know  me  when  I  begin  to  work  in 
earnest. 


To  HIS  Brother  Nikolay. 

Moscow, 
1886. 

.  .  .  You  have  often  complained  to  me  that 
people  "don't  understand  you"!  Goethe  and  New- 
ton did  not  complain  of  that.  .  .  .  Only  Christ 
complained  of  it,  but  He  was  speaking  of  His  doc- 
trine and  not  of  Himself.  .  .  .  People  understand 
you  perfectly  well.  And  if  you  do  not  understand 
yourself,  it  is  not  their  fault. 

I  assure  you  as  a  brother  and  as  a  friend  I  under- 
stand you  and  feel  for  you  with  all  my  heart.  I 
know  your  good  qualities  as  I  know  my  five  fingers; 
I  value  and  deeply  respect  them.  If  you  like,  to 
prove  that  I  understand  you,  I  can  enumerate  those 
qualities.  I  think  you  are  kind  to  the  point  of  soft- 
ness, magnanimous,  unselfish,  ready  to  share  your 
last  farthing;  you  have  no  envy  nor  hatred;  you  are 
simple-hearted,  you  pity  men  and  beasts;  you  are 
trustful,  without  spite  or  guile,  and  do  not  remember 
evil.  .  .  .  You  have  a  gift  from  above  such  as  other 
people  have  not:  you  have  talent.  This  talent 
places  you  above  millions  of  men,  for  on  earth  only 
one  out  of  two  millions  is  an  artist.     Your  talent  sets 


52  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

you  apart:  if  you  were  a  toad  or  a  tarantula,  even 
then,  people  would  respect  you,  for  to  talent  all  things 
are  forgiven. 

You  have  only  one  failing,  and  the  falseness  of 
your  position,  and  your  unhappiness  and  your 
catarrh  of  the  bowels  are  all  due  to  it.  That  is  your 
utter  lack  of  culture.  Forgive  me,  please,  but 
Veritas  magis  amicitice.  .  .  .  You  see,  life  has  its 
conditions.  In  order  to  feel  comfortable  among 
educated  people,  to  be  at  home  and  happy  with  them, 
one  must  be  cultured  to  a  certain  extent.  Talent 
has  brought  you  into  such  a  circle,  you  belong  to  it, 
but  .  .  .  you  are  drawn  away  from  it.  and  you 
vacillate  between  cultured  people  and  the  lodgers 
vis-d-vis. 

Cultured  people  must,  in  my  opinion,  satisfy  the 
following  conditions: 

1.  They  respect  human  personality,  and  therefore 
they  are  always  kind,  gentle,  polite,  and  ready  to  give 
in  to  others.  They  do  not  make  a  row  because  of  a 
hammer  or  a  lost  piece  of  india-rubber;  if  they  live 
with  anyone  they  do  not  regard  it  as  a  favour  and,  go- 
ing away,  they  do  not  say  "nobody  can  live  with  you." 
They  forgive  noise  and  cold  and  dried-up  meat  and 
witticisms  and  the  presence  of  strangers  in  their 
homes. 

2.  They  have  sympathy  not  for  beggars  and  cats 
alone.  Their  heart  aches  for  what  the  eye  does  not 
see.  .  .  .  They  sit  up  at  night  in  order  to  help 
P.  .  .  .,  to  pay  for  brothers  at  the  University,  and 
to  buv  clothes  for  their  mother. 

3.  They  respect  the  property  of  others,  and  there- 
for pay  their  debts. 

4.  They  are  sincere,  and  dread  lying  like  fire. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  53 

They  don't  lie  even  in  small  things.  A  lie  is  insult- 
ing to  the  listener  and  puts  him  in  a  lower  position 
in  the  eyes  of  the  speaker.  They  do  not  pose, 
they  behave  in  the  street  as  they  do  at  home,  they 
do  not  show  off  before  their  humbler  comrades. 
They  are  not  given  to  babbling  and  forcing  their 
uninvited  confidences  on  others.  Out  of  respect 
for  other  people's  ears  they  more  often  keep  silent 
than  talk. 

5.  They  do  not  disparage  themselves  to  rouse  com- 
passion. They  do  not  play  on  the  strings  of  other 
people's  hearts  so  that  they  may  sigh  and  make  much 
of  them.  They  do  not  say  "I  am  misunderstood," 
or  'T  have  become  second-rate,"  because  all  this  is 
striving  after  cheap  effect,  is  vulgar,  stale, 
false.   .   .   . 

6.  They  have  no  shallow  vanity.  They  do  not 
care  for  such  false  diamonds  as  knowing  celebrities, 
shaking  hands  with  the  drunken  P.,*  listening 
to  the  raptures  of  a  stray  spectator  in  a  picture  show, 
being  renowned  in  the  taverns.  ...  If  they  do  a 
pennyworth  they  do  not  strut  about  as  though  they 
had  done  a  hundred  roubles'  worth,  and  do  not  brag 
of  having  the  entry  where  others  are  not  ad- 
mitted. .  .  .  The  truly  talented  always  keep  in 
obscurity  among  the  crowd,  as  far  as  possible  from 
advertisement.  .  .  .  Even  Krylov  has  said  that 
an  empty  barrel  echoes  more  loudly  than  a  full 
one. 

7.  If  they  have  a  talent  they  respect  it.  They 
sacrifice  to  it  rest,  women,  wine,  vanity.  .  .  .  They 
are  proud  of  their  talent.  .  .  .  Besides,  they  are 
fastidious. 

*  Probably  Palmin,  a  minor  poet. — Translator's  Note. 


54  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

8.  They  develop  the  aesthetic  feeling  in  them- 
selves. They  cannot  go  to  sleep  in  their  clothes, 
see  cracks  full  of  bugs  on  the  walls,  breathe  bad 
air,  walk  on  a  floor  that  has  been  spat  upon,  cook 
their  meals  over  an  oil  stove.  They  seek  as  far  as 
possible  to  restrain  and  ennoble  the  sexual  instinct. 
.  .  .  What  they  want  in  a  woman  is  not  a  bed-fel- 
low .  .  .  they  do  not  ask  for  the  cleverness  which 
shows  itself  in  continual  lying.  They  want  especially, 
if  they  are  artists,  freshness,  elegance,  humanity,  the 
capacity  for  motherhood.  .  .  .  They  do  not  swdll 
vodka  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night,  do  not  sniff 
at  cupboards,  for  they  are  not  pigs  and  know  they 
are  not.  They  drink  only  when  they  are  free,  on 
occasion.  .  .  .  For  they  want  mens  sana  in  cor- 
pore  sano. 

And  so  on.  This  is  what  cultured  people  are  like. 
In  order  to  be  cultured  and  not  to  stand  below  the 
level  of  your  surroundings  it  is  not  enough  to  have 
read  "The  Pickwick  Papers"  and  learnt  a  mono- 
logue from  "Faust."   .   .   . 

What  is  needed  is  constant  work,  day  and  night, 
constant  reading,  study,  will.  .  .  .  Every  hour  is 
precious  for  it.  .  .  .  Come  to  us,  smash  the  vodka 
bottle,  lie  down  and  read.  .  .  .  Turgenev,  if  you 
like,  whom  you  have  not  read. 

You  must  drop  your  vanity,  you  are  not  a  child 

.   .   .  you  will  soon  be  thirty.     It  is  time ! 

I  expect  you.   .  .   .     We  all  expect  you. 
*  *  *  *  ^  * 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  55 


To  Madame  M.  V.  Kiselyov. 

Moscow, 
January  14,  1887. 

.  .  .  Even  your  praise  of  "On  the  Road"  has  not 
softened  my  anger  as  an  author,  and  I  hasten  to 
avenge  myself  for  "Mire."  Be  on  your  guard,  and 
catch  hold  of  the  back  of  a  chair  that  you  may  not 
faint.     Well,  I  begin. 

One  meets  every  critical  article  with  a  silent  bow 
even  if  it  is  abusive  and  unjust — such  is  the  literary 
etiquette.  It  is  not  the  thing  to  answer,  and  all 
who  do  answer  are  justly  blamed  for  excessive 
vanity.  But  since  your  criticism  has  the  nature  of 
"an  evening  conversation  on  the  steps  of  the  Bab- 
kino  lodge"  .  .  .  and  as,  without  touching  on  the 
literary  aspects  of  the  story,  it  raises  general  ques- 
tions of  principle,  I  shall  not  be  sinning  against  the 
etiquette  if  I  allow  myself  to  continue  our  conver- 
sation. 

In  the  first  place,  I,  like  you,  do  not  like  litera- 
ture of  the  kind  we  are  discussing.  As  a  reader  and 
"a  private  resident"  I  am  glad  to  avoid  it,  but  if  you 
ask  my  honest  and  sincere  opinion  about  it,  I  shall 
say  that  it  is  still  an  open  question  whether  it  has  a 
right  to  exist,  and  no  one  has  yet  settled  it.  .  .  . 
Neither  you  nor  I,  nor  all  the  critics  in  the  w^orld, 
have  any  trustworthy  data  that  would  give  them  the 
right  to  reject  such  literature.  I  do  not  know  which 
are  right:  Homer,  Shakespeare,  Lopez  da  Vega, 
and,  speaking  generally,  the  ancients  who  were  not 
afraid  to  rummage  in  the  "muck  heap,"  but  were 
morally  far  more  stable  than  we  are,  or  the  modem 
writers,  priggish  on  paper  but  coldly  cynical  in  their 


56  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

souls  and  in  life.  I  do  not  know  which  has  bad 
taste — the  Greeks  who  were  not  ashamed  to  describe 
love  as  it  really  is  in  beautiful  nature,  or  the  readers 
of  Gaboriau,  Marlitz,  Pierre  Bobo.*  Like  the 
problems  of  non-resistance  to  evil,  of  free  will,  etc., 
this  question  can  only  be  settled  in  the  future.  We 
can  only  refer  to  it,  but  are  not  competent  to  decide 
it.  Reference  to  Turgenev  and  Tolstoy — who 
avoided  the  "muck  heap" — does  not  throw  light  on 
the  question.  Their  fastidiousness  does  not  prove 
anything;  why,  before  them  there  was  a  generation 
of  writers  who  regarded  as  dirty  not  only  accounts  of 
"the  dregs  and  scum,"  but  even  descriptions  of  peas- 
ants and  of  officials  below  the  rank  of  titular  coun- 
cillor. Besides,  one  period,  however  brilliant,  does 
not  entitle  us  to  draw  conclusions  in  favour  of 
this  or  that  literary  tendency.  Reference  to  the 
demoralizing  effects  of  the  literary  tendency  we  are 
discussing  does  not  decide  the  question  either. 
Everything  in  this  world  is  relative  and  approximate. 
There  are  people  who  can  be  demoralized  even  by 
children's  books,  and  who  read  with  particular  pleas- 
ure the  piquant  passages  in  the  Psalms  and  in 
Solomon's  Proverbs,  while  there  are  others  who  be- 
come only  the  purer  from  closer  knowledge  of  the 
filthy  side  of  life.  Political  and  social  writers, 
lawyers,  and  doctors  who  are  initiated  into  all  the 
mysteries  of  human  sinfulness  are  not  reputed  to  be 
immoral;  realistic  writers  are  often  more  moral  than 
archimandrites.  And,  finally,  no  literature  can 
outdo  real  life  in  its  cynicism,  a  wineglassful  won't 
make  a  man  drunk  when  he  has  already  emptied  a 
barrel. 

*  P.  D.  Boborykin. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  57 

2.  That  the  world  swarms  with  "dregs  and 
scum"  is  perfectly  true.  Human  nature  is  imper- 
fect, and  it  would  therefore  be  strange  to  see  none 
but  righteous  ones  on  earth.  But  to  think  that  the 
duty  of  literature  is  to  unearth  the  pearl  from  the 
refuse  heap  means  to  reject  literature  itseil.  '"Ar- 
tistic" literature  is  only  "art"  in  so  far  as  it  paints 
life  as  it  really  is.  Its  vocation  is  to  be  ai)soiutely 
true  and  honest.  To  narrow  down  its  function  to 
the  particular  task  of  finding  "pearls"  is  as  deadly 
for  it  as  it  would  be  to  make  Levitan  draw  a  tree 
without  including  the  dirty  bark  and  the  yellow 
leaves.  I  agree  that  "pearls"  are  a  good  thing,  but 
then  a  writer  is  not  a  confectioner,  not  a  provider  of 
cosmetics,  not  an  entertainer;  he  is  a  man  bound, 
under  contract,  by  his  sense  of  duty  and  his  con- 
science; having  put  his  hand  to  the  plough  he 
mustn't  turn  back,  and,  however  distasteful,  he  must 
conquer  his  squeamishness  and  soil  his  imagination 
with  the  dirt  of  life.  He  is  just  like  any  ordinary 
reporter.  What  would  you  say  if  a  newspaper  cor- 
respondent out  of  a  feeling  of  fastidiousness  or  from 
a  wish  to  please  his  readers  would  describe  only 
honest  mayors,  high-minded  ladies,  and  virtuous  rail- 
wav  contractors? 

To  a  chemist  nothing  on  earth  is  unclean.  A 
writer  must  be  as  objective  as  a  chemist,  he  must 
lay  aside  his  personal  subjective  standpoint  and 
must  understand  that  muck  heaps  play  a  very  respect- 
able part  in  a  landscape,  and  that  the  evil  passions 
are  as  inherent  in  life  as  the  good  ones. 

3.  Writers  are  the  children  of  their  age,  and  there- 
fore, like  everybody  else,  must  submit  to  the  external 
conditions  of  the  life  of  the  community.     Thus,  they 


58  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

must  be  perfectly  decent.  This  is  the  only  thing 
we  have  a  right  to  ask  of  realistic  writers.  But  you 
say  nothing  against  the  form  and  executions  of 
"Mire."  .  .  .  And  so  I  suppose  I  have  been 
decent. 

4.  I  confess  I  seldom  commune  with  my  con- 
science when  I  write.  This  is  due  to  habit  and  the 
brevity  of  my  work.  And  so  when  I  express  this 
or  that  opinion  about  literature,  I  do  not  take  myself 
into  account. 

5.  You  write:  "If  I  were  the  editor  I  would  have 
returned  this  feuilleton  to  you  for  your  own  good." 
Why  not  go  further?  Why  not  muzzle  the  editors 
themselves  who  publish  such  stories?  Why  not 
send  a  reprimand  to  the  Headquarters  of  the  Press 
Department  for  not  suppressing  immoral  news- 
papers? 

The  fate  of  literature  would  be  sad  indeed  if  it 
weis  at  the  mercy  of  individual  views.  That  is  the 
firf  t  thing.  Secondly,  there  is  no  police  which  could 
coxisider  itself  competent  in  literary  matters.  I 
agree  that  one  can't  dispense  with  the  reins  and  the 
whip  altogether,  for  knaves  find  their  way  even  into 
literature,  but  no  thinking  will  discover  a  better 
police  for  literature  than  the  critics  and  the  author's 
own  conscience.  People  have  been  trying  to  discover 
such  a  police  since  the  creation  of  the  world,  but 
they  have  found  nothing  better. 

Here  you  would  like  me  to  lose  one  hundred  and 
fifteen  roubles  and  be  put  to  shame  by  the  editor; 
others,  your  father  among  them,  are  delighted  with 
the  story.  Some  send  insulting  letters  to  Suvorin, 
pouring  abuse  on  the  paper  and  on  me,  etc.  Who, 
then,  is  right?     Who  is  the  true  judge? 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  59 

6.  Further  you  write,  "Leave  such  writing  to 
spiritless  and  unlucky  scribblers  such  as  Okrects, 
Pince-Nez,*  or  Aloe.f 

Allah  forgive  you  if  you  were  sincere  when  you 
wrote  those  words!  A  condescending  and  contemp- 
tuous tone  towards  humble  people  simply  because 
they  are  humble  does  no  credit  to  the  heart.  In  liter- 
ature the  lower  ranks  are  as  necessar}^  as  in  the  army 
—this  is  what  the  head  says,  and  the  heart  ought  to 
say  still  more. 

Ouo'h!  I  have  wearied  you  with  my  drawn-out 
reflections.  Had  I  known  my  criticism  would  turn 
out  so  long  I  would  not  have  written  it.  Please  for- 
give me !   .   .   . 

You  have  read  my  "On  the  Road."  Well,  how  do 
you  like  my  courage?  I  write  of  "intellectual"  sub- 
jects and  am  not  afraid.  In  Petersburg  I  excite  a 
regular  furore.  A  short  time  ago  I  discoursed  upon 
non-resistance  to  evil,  and  also  surprised  the  public. 
On  New  Year's  Day  all  the  papers  presented  me  with 
a  compliment,  and  in  the  December  number  of  the 
Russkoye  Bogatstvo^  in  which  Tolstoy  writes,  there 
is  an  article  thirty-two  pages  long  by  Obolensky  en- 
titled "Chekhov  and  Korolenko."  The  fellow  goes 
into  raptures  over  me  and  proves  that  I  am  more  of 
an  artist  than  Korolenko.  He  is  probably  talking 
rot,  but,  anyway,  I  am  beginning  to  be  conscious  of 
one  merit  of  mine:  I  am  the  only  writer  who,  without 
ever  publishing  anything  in  the  thick  monthlies,  has 
merely  on  the  strength  of  writing  newspaper  rubbish 
won  the  attention  of  the  lop-eared  critics — ^there  has 
been  no  instance  of  this  before.   ...     At  the  end 

*  The  pseudonym  of  Madame  Kisselyov. 

t  The  pseudonym  of  Chekhov's  brother  Alexandr. 


60  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

of  1886  I  felt  as  though  I  were  a  bone  thrown  to  the 
dogs. 

...  I  have  written  a  play*  on  four  sheets  of 
paper.  It  will  take  fifteen  to  twenty  minutes  to  act. 
...  It  is  much  better  to  write  small  things  than 
big  ones:  they  are  unpretentious  and  successful. 
.  .  .  What  more  would  you  have?  I  wrote  my 
play  in  an  hour  and  five  minutes.  I  began  another, 
but  have  not  finished  it,  for  I  have  no  time. 

To  HIS  Uncle,  M.  G.  Chekhov. 

Moscow, 
January  18,  1887. 

.  .  .  During  the  holidays  I  was  so  overwhelmed 
with  work  that  on  Mother's  name-day  I  was  almost 
dropping  with  exhaustion. 

I  must  tell  you  that  in  Petersburg  I  am  now  the 
most  fashionable  writer.  One  can  see  that  from 
papers  and  magazines,  which  at  the  end  of  1886  were 
taken  up  with  me,  bandied  my  name  about,  and 
praised  me  beyond  my  deserts.  The  result  of  this 
growth  of  my  literary  reputation  is  that  I  get  a  num- 
ber of  orders  and  invitations — and  this  is  followed  by 
work  at  high  pressure  and  exhaustion.  My  work  is 
nervous,  disturbing,  and  involving  strain.  It  is  pub- 
lic and  responsible,  which  makes  it  doubly  hard. 
Every  newspaper  report  about  me  agitates  both  me 
and  my  family.  .  .  .  My  stories  are  read  at  pub- 
lic recitations,  wherever  I  go  people  point  at  me,  I 
am  overwhelmed  with  acquaintances,  and  so  on,  and 
so  on.  I  have  not  a  day  of  peace,  and  feel  as  though 
I  were  on  thorns  everv  moment. 

*  "Calchas,"  later  called  "Swansong." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  61 

.  .  .  Volodya  ^  is  right.  ...  It  is  true  that  a 
man  cannot  possess  the  world,  but  a  man  can  be 
called  "the  lord  of  the  world."  Tell  Volodya  that 
out  of  gratitude,  reverence,  or  admiration  of  the 
virtues  of  the  best  men — those  qualities  which  make 
a  man  exceptional  and  akin  to  the  Deity — peoples 
and  historians  have  a  right  to  call  their  elect  as  they 
like,  without  being  afraid  of  insulting  God's  greatness 
or  of  raising  a  man  to  God.  The  fact  is  we  exalt, 
not  a  man  as  such,  but  his  good  qualities,  just  that  di- 
vine principle  which  he  has  succeeded  in  developing 
in  himself  to  a  high  degree.  Thus  remarkable  kings 
are  called  "great,"  though  bodily  they  may  not  be 
taller  than  I.  I.  Loboda;  the  Pope  is  called  "Holi- 
ness," the  patriarch  used  to  be  called  "Ecumenical," 
although  he  was  not  in  relations  with  any  planet  but 
the  earth;  Prince  Vladimir  was  called  "the  lord  of 
the  world,"  though  he  ruled  only  a  small  strip  of 
ground,  princes  are  called  "serene"  and  "illus- 
trious," though  a  Swedish  match  is  a  thousand  times 
brighter  than  they  are — and  so  on.  In  using  these 
expressions  we  do  not  lie  or  exaggerate,  but  simply 
express  our  delight,  just  as  a  mother  does  not  lie  when 
she  calls  her  child  "my  golden  one."  It  is  the  feel- 
ing of  beauty  that  speaks  in  us,  and  beauty  cannot 
endure  what  is  commonplace  and  trivial;  it  induces 
us  to  make  comparisons  which  Volodya  may,  with  his 
intellect,  pull  to  pieces,  but  which  he  will  understand 
with  his  heart.  For  instance,  it  is  usual  to  com- 
pare black  eyes  with  the  night,  blue  with  the  azure 
of  the  sky,  curls  with  waves,  etc.,  and  even  the 
Bible  likes  these  comparisons;   for  instance,  "Thy 

*  He   had    apparently   criticized   the   name   Vladimir,    which 
means  "lord  of  the  world.'' — Translators  Note. 


62  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

womb  is  more  spacious  than  heaven,"  or  "The 
Sun  of  righteousness  arises,"  "The  rock  of  faith," 
etc.  The  feehng  of  beauty  in  man  knows  no 
limits  or  bounds.  Tliis  is  why  a  Russian  prince 
may  be  called  "the  lord  of  the  world";  and  my 
friend  Volodya  may  have  the  same  name,  for 
names  are  given  to  people,  not  for  their  merits, 
but  in  honour  and  commemoration  of  remarkable 
men  of  the  past.  ...  If  your  young  scholar  does 
not  agree  with  me,  I  have  one  more  argument  which 
will  be  sure  to  appeal  to  him:  in  exalting  peo- 
ple even  to  God  we  do  not  sin  against  love,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  we  express  it.  One  must  not 
humihate  people — that  is  the  chief  thing.  Bet- 
ter say  to  man  "My  angel"  than  hurl  "Fool"  at 
his  head — though  men  are  more  like  fools  than  they 
are  like  angels. 

To  HIS  Sister. 

Taganrog, 

April  2,  1887. 

The  journey  from  Moscow  to  Serpuhov  was  dull. 
My  fellow-travellers  were  practical  persons  of  strong 
character  who  did  nothing  but  talk  of  the  prices  of 
flour.   .   .   . 

...  At  twelve  o'clock  we  were  at  Kursk.  An 
liour  of  waiting,  a  glass  of  vodka,  a  tidy-up  and  a 
wash,  and  cabbage  soup.  Change  to  another  train. 
The  carriage  was  crammed  full.  Immediately  after 
Kursk  I  made  friends  with  my  neighbours:  a  land- 
owner from  Harkov,  as  jocose  as  Sasha  K. ;  a  lady 
who  had  just  had  an  operation  in  Petersburg;  a 
police  captain;  an  officer  from  Little  Russia;  and  a 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  63 

general  in  military  uniform.  We  settled  social 
questions.  The  general's  arguments  were  sound, 
short,  and  liberal;  the  police  captain  was  the  type 
of  an  old  battered  sinner  of  an  hussar  yearning  for 
amorous  adventures.  He  had  the  affectations  of  a 
governor:  he  opened  his  mouth  long  before  he  began 
to  speak,  and  having  said  a  word  he  gave  a  long 
growl  like  a  dog,  "er-r-r."  The  lady  was  injecting 
morphia,  and  sent  the  men  to  fetch  her  ice  at  the 
stations. 

At  Belgrade  I  had  cabbage  soup.  We  got  to 
Harkov  at  nine  o'clock.  A  touching  parting  from 
the  police  captain,  the  general  and  the  others.  .  .  . 
I  woke  up  at  Slavyansk  and  sent  you  a  postcard.  A 
new  lot  of  passengers  got  in:  a  landowner  and  a 
railway  inspector.  We  talked  of  railways.  The  in- 
spector told  us  how  the  Sevastopol  railway  stole 
three  hundred  carriages  from  the  Azov  line  and 
painted  them  its  own  colour.* 

.  .  .  Twelve  o'clock.  Lovely  weather.  There 
is  a  scent  of  the  steppe  and  one  hears  the  birds  sing. 
I  see  my  old  friends  the  ravens  flying  over  the 
steppe. 

The  barrows,  the  water-towers,  the  buildings — 
everything  is  familiar  and  well-remembered.  At  the 
station  I  have  a  helping  of  remarkably  good  and  rich 
sorrel  soup.  Then  I  walk  along  the  platform. 
Young  ladies.  At  an  upper  window  at  the  far  end 
of  the  station  sits  a  young  girl  (or  a  married  lady, 
goodness  knows  which)  in  a  white  blouse,  beautiful 
and  languid,  t  I  look  at  her,  she  looks  at  me.  .  .  . 
I  put  on  my  glasses,  she  does  the  same.   .  .   .     Oh, 

*  See  the  story  "Cold  Blood." 
t  See  the  story  "Two  Beauties." 


64  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

lovely  vision!  I  caught  a  catarrh  of  the  heart  and 
continued  my  journey.  The  weather  is  devilishly, 
revoltingly  fine.  Little  Russians,  oxen,  ravens, 
white  huts,  rivers,  the  line  of  the  Donets  railway  with 
one  telegraph  wire,  daughters  of  landowners  and 
farmers,  red  dogs,  the  trees — ^it  all  flits  by  like  a 
dream.  ...  It  is  hot.  The  inspector  begins  to 
bore  me.  The  rissoles  and  pies,  half  of  which  I  have 
not  got  through,  begin  to  smell  bitter.  ...  I  shove 
them  under  somebody  else's  seat,  together  with  the 
remains  of  the  vodka. 

...  I  arrive  at  Taganrog.  ...  It  gives  one 
the  impression  of  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii;  there 
are  no  people,  and  instead  of  mummies  there  are 
sleepy  drishpaks^  and  melon-shaped  heads.  All  the 
houses  look  flattened  out,  and  as  though  they  had 
long  needed  replastering,  the  roofs  want  painting,  the 
shutters  are  closed.   .   .   . 

At  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  my  uncle,  his 
family,  Irina,  the  dogs,  the  rats  that  live  in  the  store- 
room, the  rabbits  were  fast  asleep.  There  was  noth- 
ing for  it  but  to  go  to  bed  too.  I  sleep  on  the  draw- 
ing-room sofa.  The  sofa  has  not  increased  in 
length,  and  is  as  short  as  it  was  before,  and  so  when 
I  go  to  bed  I  have  either  to  stick  up  my  legs  in  an 
unseemly  way  or  to  let  them  hang  down  to  the  floor. 
I  think  of  Procrustes  and  his  bed.   .   .   . 


April  6. 

I  wake  up  at  five.  The  sky  is  grey.  There  is  a 
cold,  unpleasant  wind  that  reminds  one  of  Moscow. 
It  is  dull.      I  wait  for  the  church  bells  and  go  to  late 

*  Uneducated  young  men  in  the  jargon  of  Taganrog. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  65 

Mass.  In  the  cathedral  it  is  all  very  charming, 
decorous,  and  not  boring.  The  choir  sings  well,  not 
at  all  in  a  plebeian  style,  and  the  congregation  en- 
tirely consists  of  young  ladies  in  olive-green  dresses 
and  chocolate-coloured  jackets.   .   .   . 

April  8,  9,  and  10. 

Frightfully  dull.  It  is  cold  and  grey.  .  .  . 
During  all  my  stay  in  Taganrog  I  could  only  do 
justice  to  the  following  things:  remarkably  good  ring 
rolls  sold  at  the  market,  the  Santurninsky  wine,  fresh 
caviare,  excellent  crabs  and  uncle's  genuine  hospital- 
ity. Everything  else  is  poor  and  not  to  be  envied. 
The  young  ladies  here  are  not  bad,  but  it  takes  some 
time  to  get  used  to  them.  They  are  abrupt  in  their 
movements,  frivolous  in  their  attitude  to  men,  run 
away  from  their  parents  with  actors,  laugh  loudly, 
easily  fall   in   love,   whistle   to   dogs,    drink   wine, 

On  Saturday  I  continued  my  journey.  At  the 
Moskaya  station  the  air  is  lovely  and  fresh,  caviare 
is  seventy  kopecks  a  pound.  At  Rostdov  I  had  two 
hours  to  wait,  at  Taganrog  twenty.  I  spent  the  night 
at  an  acquaintance's.  The  devil  only  knows  what  I 
haven't  spent  a  night  on:  on  beds  with  bugs,  on 
sofas,  settees,  boxes.  Last  night  I  spent  in  a  long 
and  narrow  parlour  on  a  sofa  under  a  looking- 
glass.   ... 

April  25. 

.  .  .  Yesterday  was  the  wedding — a  real  Cossack 
wedding  with  music,  feminine  bleating,  and  revolting 
drunkenness.  .  .  .  The  bride  is  sixteen.  They 
were  married  in  the  cathedral.     I  acted  as  best  man, 


66  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

and  was  dressed  in  somebody  else's  evening  suit  with 
fearfully  wide  trousers,  and  not  a  single  stud  on  my 
shirt.  In  Moscow  such  a  best  man  would  have  been 
kicked  out,  but  here  I  looked  smarter  than  any- 
one. 

I  saw  many  rich  and  eligible  young  ladies.  The 
choice  is  enormous,  but  I  was  so  drunk  all  the  time 
that  I  took  bottles  for  young  ladies  and  young  ladies 
for  bottles.  Probably  owing  to  my  drunken  condi- 
tion the  local  ladies  found  me  witty  and  satirical! 
The  young  ladies  here  are  regular  sheep,  if  one  gets 
up  from  her  place  and  walks  out  of  the  room  all  the 
others  follow  her.  One  of  them,  the  boldest  and 
the  most  brainy,  wishing  to  show  that  she  is  not  a 
stranger  to  social  polish  and  subtlety,  kept  slapping 
me  on  the  hand  and  saying,  "Oh,  you  wretch!" 
though  her  face  still  retained  its  scared  expression. 
I  taught  her  to  say  to  her  partners,  "How  naive  you 
are! 

The  bride  and  bridegroom,  probably  because  of 
the  local  custom  of  kissing  every  minute,  kissed  with 
such  gusto  that  their  lips  made  a  loud  smack,  and 
it  gave  me  a  taste  of  sugary  raisins  in  my  mouth  and 
a  spasm  in  my  left  calf.  The  inflammation  of 
the  vein  in  my  left  leg  got  worse  through  their 
kisses. 

...  At  Zvyerevo  I  shall  have  to  wait  from  nine 
in  the  evening  till  five  in  the  morning.  Last  time 
I  spent  the  night  there  in  a  second-class  railway-car- 
riage on  the  siding.  I  went  out  of  the  carriage  in 
the  night  and  outside  I  found  veritable  marvels:  the 
moon,  the  limitless  steppe,  the  barrows,  the  wilder- 
ness; deathly  stillness,  and  the  carriages  and  the 
railway  lines  sharply  standing  out  from  the  dusk. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  67 

It  seemed  as  though  the  world  were  dead.   ...      It 
was  a  picture  one  would  not  forget  for  ages  and 


ages. 


Ragozina  Balka, 
April  30,  1887. 

It  is  April  30.  The  evening  is  warm.  There  are 
storm-clouds  about,  and  so  one  cannot  see  a  thing. 
The  air  is  close  and  there  is  a  smell  of  grass. 

I  am  staying  in  the  Ragozina  Balka  at  K.'s. 
There  is  a  small  house  with  a  thatched  roof,  and 
barns  made  of  flat  stone.  There  are  three  rooms, 
with  earthen  floors,  crooked  ceilings,  and  windows 
that  lift  up  and  down  instead  of  opening  outwards. 
.  .  .  The  walls  are  covered  with  rifles,  pistols, 
sabres  and  whips.  The  chest  of  drawers  and  the 
window-sills  are  littered  with  cartridges,  instruments 
for  mending  rifles,  tins  of  gunpowder,  and  bags  of 
shot.  The  furniture  is  lame  and  the  veneer  is  com- 
ing off  it.  I  have  to  sleep  on  a  consumptive  sofa, 
very  hard,  and  not  upholstered  .  .  .  Ash-trays  and 
all  such  luxuries  are  not  to  be  found  within  a  radius 
of  ten  versts.  .  .  .  The  first  necessaries  are  con- 
spicuous by  their  absence,  and  one  has  in  all  weathers 
to  slip  out  to  the  ravine,  and  one  is  warned  to  make 
sure  there  is  not  a  viper  or  some  other  creature  under 
the  bushes. 

The  population  consists  of  old  K.,  his  wife,  Pyotr, 
a  Cossack  officer  with  broad  red  stripes  on  his  trousers, 
Alyosha,  Hahko  (that  is,  Alexandr),  Zoika,  Ninka, 
the  shepherd  Nikita  and  the  cook  Akulina.  There 
are  immense  numbers  of  dogs  who  are  furiously  spite- 
ful and  don't  let  anyone  pass  them  by  day  or  by  night. 
I  have  to  go  about  under  escort,  or  there  will  be  one 


68  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

writer  less  in  Russia.  .  .  .  The  most  cursed  of 
the  dogs  is  Muhtar,  an  old  cur  on  whose  face  dirty 
tow  hangs  instead  of  wool.  He  hates  me  and 
rushes  at  me  with  a  roar  every  time  I  go  out  of  the 
house. 

Now  about  food.  In  the  morning  there  is  tea, 
eggs,  ham  and  bacon  fat.  At  midday,  soup  with 
goose,  roast  goose  with  pickled  sloes,  or  a  turkey, 
roast  chicken,  milk  pudding,  and  sour  milk.  No 
vodka  or  pepper  allowed.  At  five  o'clock  they  make 
on  a  camp  fire  in  the  wood  a  porridge  of  millet  and 
bacon  fat.  In  the  evening  there  is  tea,  ham,  and 
all  that  has  been  left  over  from  dinner. 

The  entertainments  are:  shooting  bustards,  mak- 
ing bonfires,  going  to  Ivanovka,  shooting  at  a  mark, 
setting  the  dogs  at  one  another,  preparing  gunpowder 
paste  for  fireworks,  talking  politics,  building  turrets 
of  stone,  etc. 

The  chief  occupation  is  scientific  farming,  intro- 
duced by  the  youthful  Cossack,  who  bought  five 
roubles'  worth  of  works  on  agriculture.  The  most 
important  part  of  this  farming  consists  of  wholesale 
slaughter,  which  does  not  cease  for  a  single  moment 
in  the  day.  They  kill  sparrows,  swallows,  bumble- 
bees, ants,  magpies,  crows — to  prevent  them  eating 
bees;  to  prevent  the  bees  from  spoiling  the  blossom 
on  the  fruit-trees  they  kill  bees,  and  to  prevent  the 
fruit-trees  from  exhausting  the  ground  they  cut  down 
the  fruit-trees.  One  gets  thus  a  regular  circle  which, 
though  somewhat  original,  is  based  on  the  latest  data 
of  science. 

We  retire  at  nine  in  the  evening.  Sleep  is  dis- 
turbed, for  Belonozhkas  and  Muhtars  howl  in  the 
yard  and  Tseter  furiously  barks  in  answer  to  them 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  69 

from  under  my  sofa.  I  am  awakened  by  shooting: 
my  hosts  shoot  with  rifles  from  the  windows  at  some 
animal  which  does  damage  to  their  crops.  To  leave 
the  house  at  night  one  has  to  call  the  Cossack,  for 
otherwise  the  dogs  would  tear  one  to  bits. 

The  weather  is  fine.  The  grass  is  tall  and  in  blos- 
som. I  watch  bees  and  men  among  whom  I  feel  my- 
self something  like  a  Mikluha-Maklay.  Last  night 
there  was  a  beautiful  thunderstorm. 

.  .  .  The  coal  mines  are  not  far  off.  To-morrow 
morning  early  I  am  going  on  a  one-horse  droshky  to 
Ivanovka  (twenty-three  versts)  to  fetch  my  letters 
from  the  post. 

.  .  .  We  eat  turkeys'  eggs.  Turkeys  lay  eggs  in 
the  wood  on  last  year's  leaves.  They  kill  hens, 
geese,  pigs,  etc.,  by  shooting  here.  The  shooting  is 
incessant. 

Taganrog, 

May  11. 

.  .  .  From  K.'s  I  went  to  the  Holy  Mountains. 
...  I  came  to  Slavyansk  on  a  dark  evening. 
The  cabmen  refuse  to  take  me  to  the  Holy  Mountains 
at  night,  and  advise  me  to  spend  the  night  at  Slav- 
yansk, which  I  did  very  willingly,  for  I  felt  broken 
and  lame  with  pain.  .  .  .  The  town  is  something 
like  Gogol's  Mirgorod;  there  is  a  hairdresser  and  a 
watchmaker,  so  that  one  may  hope  that  in  another 
thousand  years  there  will  be  a  telephone.  The  walls 
and  fences  are  pasted  with  the  advertisements  of  a 
menagerie.  .  .  .  On  green  and  dusty  streets  walk 
pigs,  cows,  and  other  domestic  creatures.  The 
houses  look  cordial  and  friendly,  rather  like  kindly 
grandmothers;  the  pavements  are  soft,  the  streets 


70  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

are  wide,  there  is  a  smell  of  lilac  and  acacia  in  the 
air;  from  the  distance  come  the  singing  of  a  night- 
ingale, the  croaking  of  frogs,  barking,  and  sounds  of 
a  harmonium,  of  a  woman  screeching.  ...  I 
stopped  in  Kulikov's  hotel,  where  I  took  a  room  for 
seventy-five  kopecks.  After  sleeping  on  wooden 
sofas  and  washtubs  it  was  a  voluptuous  sight  to  see 
a  bed  with  a  mattress,  a  washstand.  .  .  .  Fragrant 
breezes  came  in  at  the  wide-open  window  and  green 
branches  thrust  themselves  in.  It  was  a  glorious 
morning.  It  was  a  holiday  (May  6th)  and  the  bells 
were  ringing  in  the  cathedral.  People  were  coming 
out  from  mass.  I  saw  police  officers,  justices  of  the 
peace,  military  superintendents,  and  other  principal- 
ities and  powers  come  out  of  the  church.  I  bought 
two  kopecks'  worth  of  sunflower  seeds,  and  hired  for 
six  roubles  a  carriage  on  springs  to  take  me  to  the 
Holy  Mountains  and  back  (in  two  days'  time).  I 
drove  out  of  the  town  through  little  streets  literally 
drowned  in  the  green  of  cherry,  apricot,  and  apple 
trees.  The  birds  sang  unceasingly.  Little  Rus- 
sians whom  I  met  took  off  their  caps,  taking  me 
probably  for  Turgenev;  my  driver  jumped  every 
minute  off  the  box  to  put  the  harness  to  rights,  or 
to  crack  his  whip  at  the  boys  who  ran  after  the 
carriage.  .  .  .  There  were  strings  of  pilgrims 
along  the  road.  On  all  sides  there  were  white  hills, 
big  and  small.  The  horizon  was  bluish-white,  the 
rye  was  tall,  oak  copses  were  met  with  here  and  there 
— the  only  things  lacking  were  crocodiles  and  rattle- 
snakes. 

I  came  to  the  Holy  Mountains  at  twelve  o'clock. 
It  is  a  remarkably  beautiful  and  unique  place.  The 
monastery  stands  on  the  bank  of  the  river  Donets  at 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  71 

the  foot  of  a  huge  white  rock  covered  with  gardens, 
oaks,  and  ancient  pines  crowded  together  and  over- 
hanging, one  above  another.  It  seems  as  if  the  trees 
had  not  enough  room  on  the  rock,  and  as  if  some 
force  were  driving  them  upwards.  .  .  .  The  pines 
literally  hang  in  the  air  and  look  as  though  they 
might  fall  any  minute.  Cuckoos  and  nightingales 
sing  night  and  day. 

The  monks,  very  pleasant  people,  gave  me  a  very 
unpleasant  room  with  a  pancake-like  mattress.  I 
spent  two  nights  at  the  monastery  and  gathered  a 
mass  of  impressions.  While  I  was  there  some  fifteen 
thousand  pilgrims  assembled  because  of  St.  Nicolas' 
Day;  eight-ninths  of  them  were  old  women.  I  did 
not  know  before  that  there  were  so  many  old  women 
in  the  world ;  had  I  known,  I  would  have  shot  myself 
long  ago.  About  the  monks,  my  acquaintance  with 
them  and  how  I  gave  medical  advice  to  the  monks  and 
the  old  women,  I  will  write  to  the  Novoye  Vremya 
and  tell  you  when  we  meet.  The  services  are  end- 
less: at  midnight  they  ring  for  matins,  at  five  for 
early  mass,  at  nine  for  late  mass,  at  three  for  the 
song  of  praise,  at  five  for  vespers,  at  six  for  the 
special  prayers.  Before  every  service  one  hears  in 
the  corridors  the  weeping  sound  of  a  bell,  and  a  monk 
runs  along  crying  in  the  voice  of  a  creditor  who  im- 
plores his  debtor  to  pay  him  at  least  five  kopecks  for 
a  rouble: 

"Lord  Jesus  Christ,  have  mercy  upon  us !  Please 
come  to  matins!" 

It  is  awkward  to  stay  in  one's  room,  and  so  one 
gets  up  and  goes  out.  I  have  chosen  a  spot  on  the 
bank  of  the  Donets,  where  I  sit  during  all  the 
services. 


72  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

I  have  bought  an  ikon  for  Auntie.*  The  food  is. 
provided  gratis  by  the  monastery  for  all  the  fifteen 
thousand:  cabbage  soup  with  dried  fresh-water  fish 
and  porridge.  Both  are  good,  and  so  is  the  rye 
bread. 

The  church  bells  are  wonderful.  The  choir  is  not 
up  to  much.  I  took  part  in  a  religious  procession 
on  boats. 


To    V.    G.    KOROLENKO. 

Moscow, 
October  17,  1887. 

...  I  am  extremely  glad  to  have  met  you.  I 
say  it  sincerely  and  with  all  my  heart.  In  the  first 
place,  I  deeply  value  and  love  your  talent;  it  is  dear 
to  me  for  many  reasons.  In  the  second,  it  seems  to 
me  that  if  you  and  I  live  in  this  world  another  ten 
or  twenty  years  we  shall  be  bound  to  find  points  of 
contact.  Of  all  the  Russians  now  successfully  writ- 
ing I  am  the  lightest  and  most  frivolous ;  I  am  looked 
upon  doubtfully;  to  speak  the  language  of  the  poets, 
I  have  loved  my  pure  Muse  but  I  have  not  respected 
her;  I  have  been  unfaithful  to  her  and  often  took  her 
to  places  that  were  not  fit  for  her  to  go  to.  But  you 
are  serious,  strong,  and  faithful.  The  difference  be- 
tween us  is  great,  as  vou  see,  but  nevertheless  when  I 
read  you,  and  now  when  I  have  met  you,  I  think  that 
we  have  something  in  common.  I  don't  know  if  I 
am  right,  but  I  like  to  think  it. 

*  His  mother's  sister. — Translator's  Note. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  73 

To  HIS  Brother  Alexandr. 

Moscow, 
November  20,  1887. 

Well,  the  first  performance*  is  over.  I  will  tell 
you  all  about  it  in  detail.  To  begin  with,  Korsh 
promised  me  ten  rehearsals,  but  gave  me  only  four, 
of  which  only  two  could  be  called  rehearsals,  for  the 
other  two  were  tournaments  in  which  messieurs  les 
artistes  exercised  themselves  in  altercation  and  abuse. 
Davydov  and  Glama  were  the  only  two  who  knew 
their  parts;  the  others  trusted  to  the  prompter  and 
their  own  inner  conviction. 

Act  One. — I  am  behind  the  stage  in  a  small  box 
that  looks  like  a  prison  cell.  My  family  is  in  a 
box  of  the  benoire  and  is  trembling.  Contrary  to  my 
expectations,  I  am  cool  and  am  conscious  of  no  agita- 
tion. The  actors  are  nervous  and  excited,  and  cross 
themselves.  The  curtain  goes  up  .  .  .  the  actor 
whose  benefit  night  it  is  comes  on.  His  uncertainty, 
the  way  that  he  forgets  his  part,  and  the  wreath 
that  is  presented  to  him  make  the  play  unrecog- 
nizable to  me  from  the  first  sentences.  Kiselevsky, 
of  whom  I  had  great  hopes,  did  not  deliver  a  single 
phrase  correctly — literally  not  a  single  one.  He 
said  things  of  his  own  composition.  In  spite  of 
this  and  of  the  stage  manager's  blunders,  the  first 
act  was  a  great  success.  There  were  many 
calls. 

Act  Two. — A  lot  of  people  on  the  stage.  Visitors. 
They  don't  know  their  parts,  make  mistakes,  talk 
nonsense.  Every  word  cuts  me  like  a  knife  in  my 
back.     But — 0  Muse! — this  act,  too,  was  a  success. 

*  "Ivanov." — Translator's  Note. 


74  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

There  were  calls  for  all  the  actors,  and  I  was  called 
before  the  curtain  twice.  Congratulations  and  suc- 
cess. 

Act  Three. — The  acting  is  not  bad.  Enormous 
success.  I  had  to  come  before  the  curtain  three 
times,  and  as  I  did  so  Davydov  was  shaking  my 
hand,  and  Glama,  like  Manilov,  was  pressing  my 
other  hand  to  her  heart.  The  triumph  of  talent  and 
virtue. 

Act  Four,  Scene  One. — It  does  not  go  badly. 
Calls  before  the  curtain  again.  Then  a  long,  weari- 
some interval.  The  audience,  not  used  to  leaving 
their  seats  and  going  to  the  refreshment  bar  between 
two  scenes,  murmur.  The  curtain  goes  up.  Fine: 
through  the  arch  one  can  see  the  supper  table  (the 
wedding).  The  band  plays  flourishes.  The 
groomsmen  come  out :  they  are  drunk,  and  so  you  see 
they  think  they  must  behave  like  clowns  and  cut 
capers.  The  horseplay  and  pot-house  atmosphere 
reduce  me  to  despair.  Then  Kiselevsky  comes  out: 
it  is  a  poetical,  moving  passage,  but  my  Kiselevsky 
does  not  know  his  part,  is  drunk  as  a  cobbler,  and  a 
short  poetical  dialogue  is  transformed  into  something 
tedious  and  disgusting:  the  public  is  perplexed. 
At  the  end  of  the  play  the  hero  dies  because  he  can- 
not get  over  the  insult  he  has  received.  The  audi- 
ence, grown  cold  and  tired,  does  not  understand  this 
death  (the  actors  insisted  on  it;  I  have  another  ver- 
sion). There  are  calls  for  the  actors  and  for  me. 
During  one  of  the  calls  I  hear  sounds  of  open  hissing, 
drowned  by  the  clapping  and  stamping. 

On  the  whole  I  feel  tired  and  annoyed.  It  was 
sickening   though    the   play   had   considerable   sue- 

V/C5S»      •      •      • 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  75 

Theatre-goers  say  that  they  had  never  seen  such 
a  ferment  in  a  theatre,  such  universal  clapping  and 
hissing,  nor  heard  such  discussions  among  the  audi- 
ence as  they  saw  and  heard  at  my  play.  And  it  has 
never  happened  before  at  Korsh's  that  the  author  has 
been  called  after  the  second  act. 

November  24. 

...  It  has  all  subsided  at  last,  and  I  sit  as  before 
at  my  writing-table  and  compose  stories  with  un- 
troubled spirit.  You  can't  think  what  it  was  like! 
...  I  have  already  told  you  that  at  the  first  per- 
formance there  was  such  excitement  in  the  audience 
and  on  the  stage  as  the  prompter,  who  has  served  at 
the  theatre  for  thirty-two  years,  had  never  seen. 
They  made  an  uproar,  shouted,  clapped  and  hissed; 
at  the  refreshment  bar  it  almost  came  to  fighting,  and 
in  the  gallery  the  students  wanted  to  throw  someone 
out  and  two  persons  were  removed  by  the  police. 
The  excitement  was  general.   .   .   . 

.  .  .  The  actors  were  in  a  state  of  nervous  tension. 
All  that  I  wrote  to  you  and  Maslov  about  their  acting 
and  attitude  to  their  work  must  not,  of  course,  go 
any  further.  There  is  much  one  has  to  excuse  and 
understand.  ...  It  turned  out  that  the  actress 
who  was  doing  the  chief  part  in  my  play  had 
a  daughter  lying  dangerously  ill — how  could  she 
feel  like  acting?  Kurepin  did  well  to  praise  the 
actors. 

The  next  day  after  the  performance  there  was  a 
review  by  Pyotr  Kitcheyev  in  the  Moskovsky  Listok. 
He  calls  my  play  impudently  cynical  and  immoral 
rubbish.     The  Moskovskiya  Vyedomosd  praised  it. 

...  If  you  read  the  play  you  will  not  understand 


76  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

the  excitement  I  have  described  to  you ;  you  will  find 
nothing  special  in  it.  Nikolay,  Shehtel,  and  Levitan 
— all  of  them  painters — assure  me  that  on  the  stage 
it  is  so  original  that  it  is  quite  strange  to  look  at.  In 
readins:  one  does  not  notice  it. 


To  D.  V.  Grigorovitch. 


Moscow, 
1887. 


I  have  just  read  "Karelin's  Dream,"  and  I  am 
very  much  interested  to  know  how  far  the  dream  you 
describe  really  is  a  dream.  I  think  your  descrip- 
tion of  the  workings  of  the  brain  and  of  the  general 
feeling  of  a  person  who  is  asleep  is  physiologically 
correct  and  remarkably  artistic.  I  remember  I  read 
two  or  three  years  ago  a  French  story,  in  which  the 
author  described  the  daughter  of  a  minister,  and  prob- 
ably without  himself  suspecting  it,  gave  a  correct 
medical  description  of  hysteria.  I  thought  at  the 
time  that  an  artist's  instinct  may  sometimes  be  worth 
the  brains  of  a  scientist,  that  both  have  the  same  pur- 
pose, the  same  nature,  and  that  perhaps  in  time,  as 
their  methods  become  perfect,  they  are  destined  to 
become  one  vast  prodigious  force  which  now  it  is 
difficult  even  to  imagine.  .  .  .  "Karelin's  Dream" 
has  suggested  to  me  similar  thoughts,  and  to-day  I 
willingly  believe  Buckle,  who  saw  in  Hamlet's 
musings  on  the  dust  of  Alexander  the  Great,  Shakes- 
peare's knowledge  of  the  law  of  the  transmutation  of 
substance — i.e.,  the  power  of  the  artist  to  run  ahead 
of  the  men  of  science.  .  .  .  Sleep  is  a  subjective 
phenomenon,  and  the  inner  aspect  of  it  one  can  only 
observe  in  oneself.     But  since  the  process  of  dream- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  77 

ing  is  the  same  in  all  men,  every  reader  can,  I  think, 
judge  Karelin  by  his  own  standards,  and  every  critic 
is  bound  to  be  subjective.  From  my  own  personal 
experience  this  is  how  I  can  formulate  my  im- 
pression. 

In  the  first  place  the  sensation  of  cold  is  given 
by  you  with  remarkable  subtlety.  When  at  night 
the  quilt  falls  off  I  begin  to  dream  of  huge  slipper}'^ 
stones,  of  cold  autumnal  water,  naked  banks — and 
all  this  dim,  misty,  without  a  patch  of  blue  sky;  sad 
and  dejected  like  one  who  has  lost  his  way,  I  look 
at  the  stones  and  feel  that  for  some  reason  I  cannot 
avoid  crossing  a  deep  river;  I  see  then  small  tugs 
that  drag  huge  barges,  floating  beams.  .  .  .  All 
this  is  infinitely  grey,  damp,  and  dismal.  When 
I  run  from  the  river  I  come  across  the  fallen  ceme- 
tery gates,  funerals,  my  school-teachers.  .  .  .  And 
all  the  time  I  am  cold  through  and  through  with 
that  oppressive  nightmare-like  cold  which  is  im- 
possible in  waking  life,  and  which  is  only  felt 
by  those  who  are  asleep.  The  first  pages  of 
"Karelin's  Dream"  vividly  brought  it  to  my 
memory — especially  the  first  half  of  page  five, 
where  you  speak  of  the  cold  and  loneliness  of  the 
grave. 

I  think  that  had  I  been  born  in  Petersburg  and 
constantlv  lived  there,  I  should  alwavs  dream  of  the 
banks  of  the  Neva,  the  Senate  Square,  the  massive 
monuments. 

When  I  feel  cold  in  my  sleep  I  dream  of  people. 
.  .  .  I  happened  to  have  read  a  criticism  in  which 
the  reviewer  blames  you  for  introducing  a  man  who 
is  "almost  a  minister,"  and  thus  spoiling  the  gener- 
ally dignified  tone  of  the  story.      I  don't  agree  with 


78  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

him.  What  spoils  the  tone  is  not  the  people  but 
your  characterization  of  them,  which  in  some  places 
interrupts  the  picture  of  the  dream.  One  does 
dream  of  people,  and  always  of  unpleasant  ones. 
...  I,  for  instance,  when  I  feel  cold,  always 
dream  of  my  teacher  of  scripture,  a  learned  priest  of 
imposing  appearance,  who  insulted  my  mother  when 
I  was  a  little  boy ;  I  dream  of  vindictive,  implacable, 
intriguing  people,  smiling  with  spiteful  glee — such 
as  one  can  never  see  in  waking  life.  The  laughter 
at  the  carriage  window  is  a  characteristic  symptom  of 
Karelin's  nightmare.  When  in  dreams  one  feels  the 
presence  of  some  evil  will,  the  inevitable  ruin  brought 
about  by  some  outside  force,  one  always  hears  some- 
thing like  such  laughter.  .  .  .  One  dreams  of  peo- 
ple one  loves,  too,  but  they  generally  appear  to  suffer 
together  with  the  dreamer. 

But  when  my  body  gets  accustomed  to  the  cold, 
or  one  of  my  family  covers  me  up,  the  sensation  of 
cold,  of  loneliness,  and  of  an  oppressive  evil  will, 
gradually  disappears.  .  .  .  With  the  returning 
warmth  I  begin  to  feel  that  I  walk  on  soft  carpets 
or  on  grass,  I  see  sunshine,  women,  children.  .  .  . 
The  pictures  change  gradually,  but  more  rapidly  than 
they  do  in  waking  life,  so  that  on  awaking  it  is  difficult 
to  remember  the  transitions  from  one  scene  to  an- 
other. .  .  .  This  abruptness  is  well  brought  out  in 
your  story,  and  increases  the  impression  of  the 
dream. 

Another  natural  fact  you  have  noticed  is  also 
extremely  striking:  dreamers  express  their  moods  in 
outbursts  of  an  acute  kind,  with  childish  genuineness, 
like  Karelin.  Everyone  knows  that  people  weep  and 
cry  out  in  their  sleep  much  more  often  than  they  do 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  79 

in  waking  life.  This  is  probably  due  to  the  lack  of 
inhibition  in  sleep  and  of  the  impulses  which  make 
us  conceal  things. 

Forgive  me,  I  so  like  your  story  that  I  am  ready  to 
write  you  a  dozen  sheets,  though  I  know  I  can  tell 
you  nothing  new  or  good.  ...  I  restrain  myself 
and  am  silent,  fearing  to  bore  you  and  to  say  some- 
thing silly. 

I  will  say  once  more  that  your  story  is  magnificent. 
The  public  finds  it  "vague,"  but  to  a  writer  who  gloats 
over  every  line  such  vagueness  is  more  transparent 
than  holy  water.  .  .  .  Hard  as  I  tried  I  could  detect 
only  two  small  blots,  even  those  are  rather  far- 
fetched ! 

(1)  I  think  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  story  the 
feeling  of  cold  is  soon  blunted  in  the  reader  and  be- 
comes habitual,  owing  to  the  frequent  repetition  of 
the  word  "cold,"  and  (2),  the  word  "glossy"  is  re- 
peated too  often. 

There  is  nothing  else  I  could  find,  and  I  feel  that 
as  one  is  always  feeling  the  need  of  refreshing  models, 
"Karelin's  Dream"  is  a  splendid  event  in  my  exist- 
ence as  an  author.  This  is  why  I  could  not  contain 
myself  and  ventured  to  put  before  you  some  of  my 
thoughts  and  impressions. 

There  is  little  good  I  can  say  about  myself.  I 
write  not  what  I  want  to  be  writing,  and  I  have  not 
enough  energy  or  solitude  to  write  as  you  advised  me. 
.  .  .  There  are  many  good  subjects  jostling  in  my 
head — and  that  is  all.  I  am  sustained  by  hopes  of 
the  future,  and  watch  the  present  slip  fruitlessly 
away. 

Forgive  this  long  letter,  and  accept  the  sincere 
good  wishes  of  your  devoted  ^^  Chekhov. 


80  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


To    V.    G.    KOROLENKO. 

Moscow, 
January  9,  1888. 

Following  your  friendly  advice  I  began  writing  a 
story^  for  the  Syeverny  Vyestnik.  To  begin  with 
I  have  attempted  to  describe  the  steppe,  the  people 
who  live  there,  and  what  I  have  experienced  in  the 
steppe.  It  is  a  good  subject,  and  I  enjoy  writing 
about  it,  but  unfortunately  from  lack  of  practice  in 
writing  long  things,  and  from  fear  of  making  it  too 
rambling,  I  fall  into  the  opposite  extreme:  each  page 
turns  out  a  compact  whole  like  a  short  story,  the 
pictures  accumulate,  are  crowded,  and,  getting  in 
each  other's  way,  spoil  the  impression  as  a  whole. 
As  a  result  one  gets,  not  a  picture  in  which  all  the  de- 
tails are  merged  into  one  whole  like  stars  in  the 
heavens,  but  a  mere  diagram,  a  dry  record  of  im- 
pressions. A  writer — you,  for  instance — will 
understand  me,  but  the  reader  will  be  bored  and 
curse. 

.  .  .  Your  "Sokolinets"  is,  I  think,  the  most  re- 
markable novel  that  has  appeared  of  late.  It  is  writ- 
ten like  a  good  musical  composition,  in  accordance 
with  all  the  rules  which  an  artist  instinctively 
divines.  Altogether  in  the  whole  of  your  book 
you  are  such  a  great  artist,  such  a  force,  that  even 
your  worst  failings,  which  would  have  been  the 
ruin  of  any  other  writer,  pass  unnoticed.  For 
instance,  in  the  whole  of  vour  book  there  is  an  ob- 
stinate  exclusion  of  women,  and  I  have  only  just 
noticed  it. 

*  "The  Steppe." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  81 


To  A.  N.  Pleshtcheyev. 

Moscow, 
February  5,  1888. 

...  I  am  longing  to  read  Korolenko's  story. 
He  is  my  favourite  of  contemporary  writers.  His 
colours  are  rich  and  vivid,  his  style  is  irreproachable, 
though  in  places  rather  elaborate,  his  images  are 
noble.  Leontyev*  is  good  too.  He  is  not  so  mature 
and  picturesque,  but  he  is  warmer  than  Korolenko, 
more  peaceful  and  feminine.  .  .  .  But,  Allah 
kerim,  why  do  they  both  specialize?  The  first  will 
not  part  with  his  convicts,  and  the  second  feeds  his 
readers  with  nothing  but  officers.  ...  I  under- 
stand speciahzation  in  art  such  as  genre,  land- 
scape, history,  but  I  cannot  admit  of  such  special- 
ties as  convicts,  officers,  priests.  .  .  .  This  is 
not  specialization  but  partiality.  In  Petersburg 
you  do  not  care  for  Korolenko,  and  here  in  Mos- 
cow we  do  not  read  Shtcheglov,  but  I  fully  believe 
in  the  future  of  both  of  them.  Ah,  if  only  we  had 
decent  critics! 

February  9. 

.  .  .  You  say  you  liked  Dymovf  as  a  subject. 
Life  creates  such  characters  as  the  dare-devil  Dymov 
not  to  be  dissenters  nor  tramps,  but  downright 
revolutionaries.  .  .  .  There  never  will  be  a  revo- 
lution in  Russia,  and  Dymov  will  end  by  taking 
to  drink  or  getting  into  prison.  He  is  a  superfluous 
man. 

*  I.  L.  Shtcheglov. 

t  One  of  the  characters  in  "The  Steppe." — Translator's  Note. 


82  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


March  6. 


It  is  devilishly  cold,  but  the  poor  birds  are  already 
flying  to  Russia!  They  are  driven  by  homesickness 
and  love  for  their  native  land.  If  poets  knew  how 
many  millions  of  birds  fall  victims  to  their  longing 
and  love  for  their  homes,  how  many  of  them  freeze 
on  the  way,  what  agonies  they  endure  on  getting  home 
in  March  and  at  the  beginning  of  April,  they  would 
have  sung  their  praises  long  ago!  .  .  .  Put  your- 
self in  the  place  of  a  corncrake  who  does  not  fly  but 
walks  all  the  way,  or  of  a  wild  goose  who  gives  him- 
self up  to  man  to  escape  being  frozen.  .  .  .  Life  is 
hard  in  this  world! 

To  I.  L.  Shtcheglov. 

Moscow, 
April  18,  1888. 

...  In  any  case  I  am  more  often  merry  than  sad, 
though  if  one  comes  to  think  of  it  I  am  bound  hand 
and  foot.  .  .  .  You,  my  dear  man,  have  a  flat,  but 
I  have  a  whole  house  which,  though  a  poor  specimen, 
is  still  a  house,  and  one  of  two  storeys,  too!  You 
have  a  wife  who  will  forgive  your  having  no  money, 
and  I  have  a  whole  organization  which  will  collapse 
if  I  don't  earn  a  sufficient  number  of  roubles  a  month 
— collapse  and  fall  on  my  shoulders  like  a  heavy 
stone. 

May  3. 

...  I  have  just  sent  a  story*  to  the  Syeverny 
Vyestnik.  I  feel  a  little  ashamed  of  it.  It  is  fright- 
fully dull,  and  there  is  so  much  discussion  and 
preaching  in  it  that  it  is  mawkish.     I  didn't  hke 

*  "The  Lights." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  83 

to  send  it,  but  had  to,  for  I  need  money  as  I  do 
air.   ... 

I  have  had  a  letter  from  Leman.  He  tells  me  that 
"we"  (that  is  all  of  you  Petersburg  people)  "have 
agreed  to  print  advertisements  about  each  other's 
work  on  our  books,"  invites  me  to  join,  and  warns 
me  that  among  the  elect  may  be  included  only  such 
persons  as  have  a  "certain  degree  of  solidarity  with 
us."  I  wrote  to  say  that  I  agreed,  and  asked  him 
how  does  he  know  with  whom  I  have  solidarity  and 
with  whom  I  have  not?  How  fond  of  stuffiness  you 
are  in  Petersburg!  Don't  you  feel  stifled  with  such 
words  as  "solidarity,"  "unity  of  young  writers," 
"common  interests,"  and  so  on?  Sohdarity  and  all 
the  rest  of  it  I  admit  on  the  stock-exchange,  in 
politics,  in  religious  affairs,  etc.,  but  solidarity  among 
young  writers  is  impossible  and  unnecessary.  .  .  . 
We  cannot  feel  and  think  in  the  same  way,  our 
aims  are  different,  or  we  have  no  aims  whatever, 
we  know  each  other  little  or  not  at  all,  and  so 
there  is  nothing  on  to  which  this  solidarity  could 
be  securely  hooked.  .  .  .  And  is  there  any  need 
for  it?  No,  in  order  to  help  a  colleague,  to  re- 
spect his  personality  and  his  work,  to  refrain  from 
gossiping  about  him,  envying  him,  telling  him 
lies  and  being  hypocritical,  one  does  not  need  so 
much  to  be  a  young  writer  as  simply  a  man.  .  .  . 
Let  US'  be  ordinary  people,  let  us  treat  everybody 
alike,  and  then  we  shall  not  need  any  artificially 
worked  up  solidarity.  Insistent  desire  for  par- 
ticular, professional,  clique  solidarity  such  as  you 
want,  will  give  rise  to  unconscious  spying  on 
one  another,  suspiciousness,  control,  and,  with- 
out wishing  to  do  so,  we  shall  become  something 


84  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

like  Jesuits  in  relation  to  one  another.  ...  I, 
dear  Jean,  have  no  solidarity  with  you,  but  I 
promise  you  as  a  literary  man  perfect  freedom 
so  long  as  you  live;  that  is,  you  may  write  where 
and  how  you  wish,  you  may  think  like  Koreisha*  if 
you  like,  betray  your  convictions  and  tendencies 
a  thousand  times,  etc.,  etc.,  and  my  human  rela- 
tions with  you  will  not  alter  one  jot,  and  I  will  always 
publish  advertisements  of  your  books  on  the  wrappers 
of  mine. 

To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Sumy,  Madame  Lintvaryov's 
Estate, 

May  30,  1888, 

...  I  am  staying  on  the  bank  of  the  Psyol,  in 
the  lodge  of  an  old  signorial  estate.  I  took  the  place 
without  seeing  it,  trusting  to  luck,  and  have  not 
regretted  it  so  far.  The  river  is  wide  and  deep,  with 
plenty  of  islands,  of  fish  and  of  crayfish.  The  banks 
are  beautiful,  well-covered  with  grass  and  trees. 
And  best  of  all,  there  is  so  much  space  that  I  feel 
as  if  for  my  one  hundred  roubles  I  have  obtained 
a  right  to  live  on  an  expanse  of  which  one  can  see 
no  end.  Nature  and  life  here  is  built  on  the  pat- 
tern now  so  old-fashioned  and  rejected  by  magazine 
editors.  Nightingales  sing  night  and  day,  dogs 
bark  in  the  distance,  there  are  old  neglected  gardens, 
sad  and  poetical  estates  shut  up  and  deserted  where 
live  the  souls  of  beautiful  women;  old  footmen, 
relics  of  serfdom,  on  the  brink  of  the  grave;  young 
ladies  longing  for  the  most  conventional  love.  In 
addition  to  all  these  things,  not  far  from  me  there 

*  A  well-known  religious  fanatic  in  Moscow. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  85 

is  even  such  a  hackneyed  cliche  as  a  water-mill  (with 
sixteen  wheels) ,  with  a  miller,  and  his  daughter  who 
always  sits  at  the  window,  apparently  waiting  for 
someone.  All  that  I  see  and  hear  now  seems 
familiar  to  me  from  old  novels  and  fairy-tales.  The 
only  thing  that  has  something  new  about  it  is  a 
mysterious  bird,  which  sits  somewhere  far  away  in 
the  reeds,  and  night  and  day  makes  a  noise  that 
sounds  partly  like  a  blow  on  an  empty  barrel  and 
partly  like  the  mooing  of  a  cow  shut  up  in  a  barn. 
Every  Little  Russian  has  seen  this  bird  in  the  course 
of  his  life,  but  everyone  describes  it  differently,  which 
means  that  no  one  has  seen  it.  .  .  .  Everv  day  I 
row  to  the  mill,  and  in  the  evening  I  go  to  the 
islands  to  fish  with  fishing  maniacs  from  the  Hari- 
tovenko  factory.  Our  conversations  are  some- 
times interesting.  On  the  eve  of  Whit  Sunday  all 
the  maniacs  will  spend  the  night  on  the  islands  and 
fish  all  night;  I,  too.  There  are  some  splendid 
types. 

My  hosts  have  turned  out  to  be  very  nice  and  hos- 
pitable people.  It  is  a  family  worth  studying.  It 
consists  of  six  members.  The  old  mother,  a  very 
kind,  rather  flabby  woman  who  has  had  suffering 
enough  in  her  life;  she  reads  Schopenhauer  and  goes 
to  church  to  hear  the  Song  of  Praise;  she  conscienti- 
ously studies  every  number  of  the  Vyestnik  Evropi 
and  Syeverny  Vyestnik,  and  knows  writers  I  have  not 
dreamed  of;  attaches  much  importance  to  the  fact 
that  once  the  painter  Makovsky  stayed  in  her  lodge 
and  now  a  young  writer  is  staying  there;  talking  to 
Pleshtcheyev  she  feels  a  holy  thrill  all  over  and  re- 
joices every  minute  that  it  has  been  "vouchsafed"  to 
her  to  see  the  great  poet. 


86  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Her  eldest  daughter,  a  woman  doctor — the  pride 
of  the  whole  family  and  "a  saint"  as  the  peasants 
call  her — really  is  remarkable.  She  has  a  tumour 
on  the  brain,  and  in  consequence  of  it  she  is  totally 
blind,  has  epileptic  fits  and  constant  headaches. 
She  knows  what  awaits  her,  and  stoically  with 
amazing  coolness  speaks  of  her  approaching  death. 
In  the  course  of  my  medical  practice  I  have  grown 
used  to  seeing  people  who  were  soon  going  to  die, 
and  I  have  always  felt  strange  when  people  whose 
death  was  at  hand  talked,  smiled,  or  wept  in  my  pres- 
ence ;  but  here,  when  I  see  on  the  verandah  this  blind 
woman  who  laughs,  jokes,  or  hears  my  stories  read 
to  her,  what  begins  to  seem  strange  to  me  is  not  that 
she  is  dying,  but  that  we  do  not  feel  our  own  death, 
and  write  stories  as  though  we  were  never  going  to 
die. 

The  second  daughter,  also  a  woman  doctor,  is  a 
gentle,  shy,  infinitely  kind  creature,  loving  to  every- 
one. Patients  are  a  regular  torture  to  her,  and  she 
is  scrupulous  to  morbidity  with  them.  At  consulta- 
tions we  always  disagree:  I  bring  good  tidings  where 
she  sees  death,  and  I  double  the  doses  which  she  pre- 
scribes. But  where  death  is  obvious  and  inevitable 
my  lady  doctor  feels  quite  in  an  unprofessional  way. 
I  was  receiving  patients  with  her  one  day  at  a 
medical  centre;  a  young  Little  Russian  woman  came 
with  a  malignant  tumour  of  the  glands  in  her  neck 
and  at  the  back  of  her  head.  The  tumour  had 
spread  so  far  that  no  treatment  could  be  thought 
of.  And  because  the  woman  was  at  present  feeling 
no  pain,  but  would  in  another  six  months  die  in  ter- 
rible agony,  the  doctor  looked  at  her  in  such  a  guilty 
way  as  though  she  were  asking  forgiveness  for  being 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  87 

well,  and  ashamed  that  medical  science  was  help- 
less. She  takes  a  zealous  part  in  managing  the  house 
and  estate,  and  understands  every  detail  of  it.  She 
knows  all  about  horses  even.  When  the  side  horse 
does  not  pull  or  gets  restless,  she  knows  how  to  help 
matters  and  instructs  the  coachman.  I  believe  she 
has  never  hurt  anyone,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  she 
has  not  been  happy  for  a  single  instant  and  never 
will  be. 

The  third  daughter,  who  has  finished  her  studies 
at  Bezstuzhevka,  is  a  vigorous,  sunburnt  young 
girl  with  a  loud  voice.  Her  laugh  can  be  heard  a 
mile  away.  She  is  a  passionate  Little  Russian 
patriot.  She  has  built  a  school  on  the  estate  at  her 
own  expense,  and  teaches  the  children  Krylov's 
fables  translated  into  Little  Russian.  She  goes  to 
Shevtchenko's  grave  as  a  Turk  goes  to  Mecca.  She 
does  not  cut  her  hair,  wears  stays  and  a  bustle,  looks 
after  the  housekeeping,  is  fond  of  laughing  and  sing- 
ing. 

The  eldest  son  is  a  quiet,  modest,  intelligent,  hard- 
working young  man  with  no  talents;  he  has  no  pre- 
tensions, and  is  apparently  content  with  what  life 
has  given  him.  He  has  been  dismissed  from  the 
University*  just  before  taking  his  degree,  but  he 
does  not  boast  of  it.  He  speaks  little.  He  loves 
farming  and  the  land  and  lives  in  harmony  with  the 
peasants. 

The  second  son  is  a  young  man  mad  over  Tchai- 
kovsky's being  a  genius.  He  dreams  of  living  ac- 
cording to  Tolstoy. 

•X-  *  *  *  *  * 

*  On  political  grounds,  of  course,  is  understood. — Translator's 
Note. 


88  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Pleshtcheyev  is  staying  with  us.  They  all  look 
upon  him  as  a  demi-god,  consider  themselves  happy 
if  he  bestows  attention  on  somebody's  junket,  bring 
him  flowers,  invite  him  everywhere,  and  so  on.  .  .  . 
And  he  "listens  and  eats,"  and  smokes  his  cigars 
which  give  his  admirers  a  headache.  He  is  slow  to 
move,  with  the  indolence  of  old  age,  but  this  does  not 
prevent  the  fair  sex  from  taking  him  about  in  boats, 
driving  with  him  to  the  neighbouring  estates,  and 
singing  songs  to  him.  Here  he  is  by  way  of  being 
the  same  thing  as  in  Petersburg — i.e.,  an  ikon  which 
is  prayed  to  for  being  old  and  for  having  once  hung 
by  the  side  of  the  miracle-working  ikons.  So  far  as 
I  am  concerned  I  regard  him — not  to  speak  of  his  be- 
ing a  very  good,  warm-hearted  and  sincere  man — as 
a  vessel  full  of  traditions,  interesting  memories,  and 
good  platitudes. 

.  .  .  What  you  say  about  "The  Lights"  is  quite 
just.  You  say  that  neither  the  conversation  about 
pessimism  nor  Kisotcha's  story  in  any  way  help  to 
solve  the  question  of  pessimism.  It  seems  to  me 
it  is  not  for  writers  of  fiction  to  solve  such  questions 
as  that  of  God,  of  pessimism,  etc.  The  writer's 
business  is  simply  to  describe  who  has  been  speak- 
ing about  God  or  about  pessimism,  how,  and  in 
what  circumstances.  The  artist  must  be  not  the 
judge  of  his  characters  and  of  their  conversations, 
but  merely  an  impartial  witness.  I  have  heard  a 
desultory  conversation  of  two  Russians  about  pes- 
simism— a  conversation  which  settles  nothing — and 
I  must  report  that  conversation  as  I  heard  it;  it  is 
for  the  jury,  that  is,  for  the  readers,  to  decide  on  the 
valii«  of  it.  My  business  is  merely  to  be  talented 
— i.e.,  to  know  how  to  distinguish  important  state- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  89 

ments  from  unimportant,  how  to  throw  hght  on  the 
characters,  and  to  speak  their  language.  Shtche- 
glov-Leontyev  blames  me  for  finishing  the  story  with 
the  words,  "There's  no  making  out  anything  in  this 
world."  He  thinks  a  writer  who  is  a  good  psy- 
chologist ought  to  be  able  to  make  it  out — that  is 
what  he  is  a  psychologist  for.  But  I  don't  agree 
with  him.  It  is  time  that  writers,  especially  those 
who  are  artists,  recognized  that  there  is  no  making 
out  anything  in  this  world,  as  once  Socrates  rec- 
ognized it,  and  Voltaire,  too.  The  mob  thinks  it 
knows  and  understands  everything;  and  the  more 
stupid  it  is  the  wider  it  imagines  its  outlook  to  be. 
And  if  a  writer  whom  the  mob  believes  in  has  the 
courage  to  say  that  he  does  not  understand  an}1;hing 
of  what  he  sees,  that  alone  will  be  something 
gained  in  the  realm  of  thought  and  a  great  step  in 
advance. 


To  A.  N.  Pleshtcheyev. 

Sumy, 
June  28,  1888. 

.  .  .  We  have  been  to  the  province  of  Poltava. 
We  went  to  the  Smagins',  and  to  Sorotchintsi.  We 
drove  with  a  four-in-hand,  in  an  ancestral,  very  com- 
fortable carriage.  We  had  no  end  of  laughter,  ad- 
ventures, misunderstandings,  halts,  and  meetings  on 
the  way.  ...  If  you  had  only  seen  the  places 
where  we  stayed  the  night  and  the  villages  stretching 
eight  or  ten  versts  through  which  we  drove!  .  .  . 
What  weddings  we  met  on  the  road,  what  lovely  music 
we  heard  in  the  evening  stillness,  and  what  a  heavy 
smell  of  fresh  hay  there  was !      Really  one  might  sell 


90  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

one's  soul  to  the  devil  for  the  pleasure  of  looking  at 
the  warm  evening  sky,  the  pools  and  the  rivulets  re- 
flecting the  sad,  languid  sunset.   .   .   . 

.  .  .  The  Smagins'  estate  is  "great  and  fertile," 
but  old,  neglected,  and  dead  as  last  year's  cob- 
webs. The  house  has  sunk,  the  doors  won't  shut, 
the  tiles  in  the  stove  squeeze  one  another  out  and 
form  angles,  young  suckers  of  cherries  and  plums 
peep  up  between  the  cracks  of  the  floors.  In  the 
room  where  I  slept  a  nightingale  had  made  herself 
a  nest  between  the  window  and  the  shutter,  and  while 
I  was  there  little  naked  nightingales,  looking  like 
undressed  Jew  babies,  hatched  out  from  the  eggs. 
Sedate  storks  live  on  the  barn.  At  the  beehouse 
there  is  an  old  grandsire  who  remembers  the  King 
Goroh*  and  Cleopatra  of  Egypt. 

Everything  is  crumbling  and  decrepit,  but  poeti- 
cal, sad,  and  beautiful  in  the  extreme. 


To  HIS  Sister. 


Feodosu, 
July,  1888. 


.  .  .  The  journey  from  Sumy  to  Harkov  is  fright- 
fully dull.  Going  from  Harkov  to  Simferopol  one 
might  well  die  of  boredom.  The  Crimean  steppe  is 
depressing,  monotonous,  with  no  horizon,  colourless 
like  Ivanenko's  stories,  and  on  the  whole  rather  like 
the  tundra.  .  .  .  From  Simferopol  mountains  be- 
gin and,  with  them,  beauty.  Ravines,  mountains, 
ravines,  mountains,  poplars  stick  out  from  the  ra- 
vines, vineyards  loom  dark  on  the  mountains — all 
this  is  bathed  in  moonlight,  is  new  and  wild,  and  sets 

*  The  equivalent  of  Old  King  Cole. — Translator's  Note. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  91 

one's  imagination  working  in  harmony  with  Gogol's 
"Terrible  Vengeance."  Particularly  fantastic  are 
the  alternating  precipices  and  tunnels  when  you 
see  now  depths  full  of  moonlight  and  now  complete 
sinister  darkness.  It  is  rather  uncanny  and  delight- 
ful. One  feels  it  is  something  not  Russian,  some- 
thing alien.  I  reached  Sevastopol  at  night.  The 
town  is  beautiful  in  itself  and  beautiful  because  it 
stands  by  a  marvellous  sea.  The  best  in  the  sea  is 
its  colour,  and  that  one  cannot  describe.  It  is  like 
blue  copperas.  As  to  steamers  and  sailing  vessels, 
piers  and  harbours,  what  strikes  one  most  of  all  is 
the  poverty  of  the  Russians.  Except  the  ^^popo- 
vkas/'  which  look  like  Moscow  merchants'  wives,  and 
two  or  three  decent  steamers,  there  is  nothing  to 
speak  of  in  the  bay. 

...  In  the  morning  it  was  deadly  dull.  Heat, 
dust,  thirst.  ...  In  the  harbour  there  was  a 
stench  of  ropes,  and  one  caught  glimpses  of  faces 
burnt  brick-red,  sounds  of  a  pulley,  of  the  splash- 
ing of  dirty  water,  knocking,  Tatar  words,  and  all 
sorts  of  uninteresting  nonsense.  You  go  up  to  a 
steamer:  men  in  rags,  bathed  in  sweat  and  almost 
baked  by  the  sun,  dizzy,  with  tatters  on  their  backs 
and  shoulders,  unload  Portland  cement;  you  stand 
and  look  at  them  and  the  whole  scene  becomes  so 
remote,  so  alien,  that  one  feels  insufferably  dull  and 
uninterested.  It  is  entertaining  to  get  on  board 
and  set  off,  but  it  is  rather  a  bore  to  sail  and  talk 
to  a  crowd  of  passengers  consisting  of  elements  all 
of  which  one  knows  by  heart  and  is  weary  of  already. 
.  .  .  Yalta  is  a  mixture  of  something  European 
that  reminds  one  of  the  views  of  Nice,  with  some- 
thing cheap  and  shoddy.     The  box-like  hotels  in 


92  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

which  unhappy  consumptives  are  pining,  the  im- 
pudent Tatar  faces,  the  ladies'  bustles  with  their  very 
undisguised  expression  of  something  very  abomina- 
ble, the  faces  of  the  idle  rich,  longing  for  cheap  ad- 
ventures, the  smell  of  perfumery  instead  of  the  scent 
of  the  cedars  and  the  sea,  the  miserable  dirty  pier, 
the  melancholy  lights  far  out  at  sea,  the  prattle  of 
young  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  have  crowded  here 
in  order  to  admire  nature  of  which  they  have  no  idea 
— all  this  taken  together  produces  such  a  depressing 
effect  and  is  so  overwhelming  that  one  begins  to 
blame  oneself  for  being  biassed  and  unfair.  .  .  . 
At  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  I  arrived  at  Feodosia 
— a  greyish-brown,  dismal,  and  dull-looking  little 
town.  There  is  no  grass,  the  trees  are  wretched,  the 
soil  is  coarse  and  hopelessly  poor.  Everything  is 
burnt  up  by  the  sun,  and  only  the  sea  smiles — the 
sea  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  wretched  little 
towns  or  tourists.  Sea  bathing  is  so  nice  that  when 
I  got  into  the  water  I  began  to  laugh  for  no  reason 
at  all.   .   .   . 

July  22. 

.  .  .  Yesterday  we  went  to  Shah-Mamai,  Aivaz- 
ovsky's  estate,  twenty-five  versts  from  Feodosia.  It 
is  a  magnificent  estate,  rather  like  fairyland;  such 
estates  may  probably  be  seen  in  Persia.  Aivaz- 
ovsky*  himself,  a  vigorous  old  man  of  seventy-five, 
is  a  mixture  of  a  good-natured  Armenian  and  an 
overfed  bishop;  he  is  full  of  dignity,  has  soft  hands, 
and  offers  them  like  a  general.  He  is  not  very  in- 
telligent, but  is  a  complex  nature  worthy  of  atten- 
tion.    He  combines  in  himself  a  general,  a  bishop, 

*  The  famous  marine  painter. — Translator's  Note. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  9S 

an  artist,  an  Armenian,  a  naive  old  peasant,  and  an 
Othello.  He  is  married  to  a  young  and  very  beau- 
tiful woman  whom  he  rules  with  a  rod  of  iron.  He 
is  friendly  with  Sultans,  Shahs,  and  Amirs.  He  col- 
laborated with  Glinka  in  Avriting  "Ruslan  and  Liud- 
mila."  He  was  a  friend  of  Pushkin,  but  has  never 
read  him.  He  has  not  read  a  single  book  in  his  life.. 
When  it  is  suggested  to  him  that  he  should  read' 
something  he  answers,  "Why  should  I  read  when  I 
have  opinions  of  my  own?"  I  spent  a  whole  day 
in  his  house  and  had  dinner  there.  The  dinner  was 
fearfully  long,  with  endless  toasts.  By  the  way,  at 
that  dinner  I  was  introduced  to  the  lady  doctor,  wife 
of  the  well-known  professor.  She  is  a  fat,  bulky 
piece  of  flesh.  If  she  were  undressed  and  painted 
green  she  would  look  just  like  a  frog.  After  talking 
to  her  I  mentally  scratched  her  off  the  list  of  women, 
doctors.   .   .   . 

To  HIS  Brother  Mihail. 

July  28,  1888. 

On  the  Seas  Black,  Caspian,  and  of  Life. 

...  A  wretched  little  cargo  steamer,  Dir,  is  rac- 
ing full  steam  from  Suhum  to  Poti.  It  is  about  mid- 
night. The  little  cabin — the  only  one  in  the  steamer 
— is  insufferably  hot  and  stuffy.  There  is  a  smell 
of  burning,  of  rope,  of  fish  and  of  the  sea.  One 
hears  the  engine  going  "Boom-boom-boom."  .  .  . 
There  are  devils  creaking  up  aloft  and  under  the 
floor.  The  darkness  is  swaying  in  the  cabin  and  the 
bed  rocks  up  and  down.  .  .  .  One's  stomach's 
whole  attention  is  concentrated  on  the  bed,  and,  as 
though  to  find  its  level,  it  rolls  the  Seltzer  water  I 
had  drunk  right  up  to  my  throat  and  then  lets  it 


94  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

down  to  my  heels.  Not  to  be  sick  over  my  clothes 
in  the  dark  I  hastily  put  on  my  things  and  go  out. 
...  It  is  dark.  My  feet  stumble  against  some 
invisible  iron  bars,  a  rope;  wherever  you  step  there 
are  barrels,  sacks,  rags.  There  is  coal  dust  under 
foot.  In  the  dark  I  knock  against  a  kind  of  grat- 
ing: it  is  a  cage  with  wild  goats  which  I  saw  in  the 
daytime.  They  are  awake  and  anxiously  listening 
to  the  rocking  of  the  boat.  By  the  cage  sit  two  Turks 
who  are  not  asleep  either.  ...  I  grope  my  way 
up  the  stairs  to  the  captain's  bridge.  ...  A  warm 
but  violent  and  unpleasant  wind  tries  to  blow  away 
my  cap.  .  .  .  The  steamer  rocks.  The  mast  in 
front  of  the  captain's  bridge  sways  regularly  and 
leisurely  like  a  metronome;  I  try  to  look  away  from 
it,  but  my  eyes  will  not  obey  me  and,  just  like  my 
stomach,  insist  on  following  moving  objects.  .  .  . 
The  sky  and  the  sea  are  dark,  the  shore  is  not  in  sight, 
the  deck  looks  a  dark  blur  .  .  .  there  is  not  a  single 
light. 

Behind  me  is  a  window  ...  I  look  into  it  and 
see  a  man  who  looks  attentively  at  something  and 
turns  a  wheel  with  an  expression  as  though  he  were 
playing  the  ninth  symphony.  .  .  .  Next  to  me 
stands  the  little  stout  captain  in  tan  shoes.  .  .  . 
He  talks  to  me  of  Caucasian  emigrants,  of  the  heat, 
of  winter  storms,  and  at  the  same  time  looks  in- 
tently into  the  dark  distance  in  the  direction  of  the 
shore. 

"You  seem  to  be  going  too  much  to  the  left 
again,"  he  says  to  someone;  or,  "There  ought  to  be 
lights  here.  ...     Do  you  see  them?" 

"No,  sir,"  someone  answers  from  the  dark. 

"Climb  up  and  look." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  95 

A  dark  figure  appears  on  the  bridge  and  leisurely 
climbs  up.     In  a  minute  we  hear: 

"Yes,  sir." 

I  look  to  the  left  where  the  lights  of  the  lighthouse 
are  supposed  to  be,  borrow  the  captain's  glasses,  but 
see  nothing.  .  .  .  Half  an  hour  passes,  then  an 
hour.  The  mast  sways  regularly,  the  devils  creak, 
the  wind  makes  dashes  at  my  cap.  ...  It  is  not 
pitch  dark,  but  one  feels  uneasy. 

Suddenly  the  captain  dashes  off  somewhere  to  the 
rear  of  the  ship,  crying,  "You  devil's  doll!" 

"To  the  left,"  he  shouts  anxiously  at  the  top 
of  his  voice.  "To  the  left!  ...  To  the  right! 
A-va-va-a!" 

Incomprehensible  words  of  command  are  heard. 
The  steamer  starts,  the  devils  give  a  creak.  .  .  . 
"A-va-va!"  shouts  the  captain;  at  the  bows  a  bell 
is  rung,  on  the  black  deck  there  are  sounds  of  run- 
ning, knocking,  cries  of  anxiety.  .  .  .  The  Dir 
starts  once  more,  puffs  painfully,  and  apparently  tries 
to  move  backwards. 

"What  is  it?"  I  ask,  and  feel  something  like  a  faint 
terror.     There  is  no  answer. 

"He'd  like  a  collision,  the  devil's  doll!"  I  hear  the 
captain's  harsh  shout.      "To  the  left!" 

Red  lights  appear  in  front,  and  suddenly  among 
the  uproar  is  heard  the  whistling,  not  of  the  Dir,  but 
of  some  other  steamer.  .  .  .  Now  I  understand  it: 
there  is  going  to  be  a  collision!  The  Dir  puffs, 
trembles,  and  does  not  move,  as  though  waiting  for 
a  signal  to  go  down.  .  .  .  But  just  when  I  think 
all  is  lost,  the  red  lights  appear  on  the  left  of  us,  and 
the  dark  silhouette  of  a  steamer  can  be  dis- 
cerned.  ...     A    long    black   body   sails   past   us, 


96  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

guiltily  blinks  its  red  eyes,  and  gives  a  guilty 
whistle.   .   .   . 

"Oof!     What  steamer  is  it?"  I  ask  the  captain. 

The  captain  looks  at  the  silhouette  through  his 
glasses  and  replies: 

"It  is  the  TweedieT 

After  a  pause  we  begin  to  talk  of  the  Vesta,  which 
collided  with  two  steamers  and  went  down.  Under 
the  influence  of  this  conversation  the  sea,  the  night 
and  the  wind  begin  to  seem  hideous,  created  on  pur- 
pose for  man's  undoing,  and  I  feel  sorry  as  I  look 
at  the  fat  little  captain.  .  .  .  Something  whispers 
to  me  that  this  poor  man,  too,  will  sooner  or  later 
sink  to  the  bottom  and  be  choked  with  salt  water."* 

I  go  back  to  my  cabin.  ...  It  is  stuffy,  and 
there  is  a  smell  of  cooking.  My  travelling  compan- 
ion, Suvorin-yi/5,  is  asleep  already.  ...  I  take  off 
all  my  clothes  and  go  to  bed.  .  .  .  The  darkness 
sways  to  and  fro,  the  bed  seems  to  breathe.  .  .  . 
Boom-boom-boom!  Bathed  in  perspiration,  breath- 
less, and  feeling  an  oppression  all  over  with  the  rock- 
ing, I  ask  myself,  "What  am  I  here  for?" 

I  wake  up.  It  is  no  longer  dark.  Wet  all  over, 
with  a  nasty  taste  in  my  mouth,  I  dress  and  go  out. 
Everything  is  covered  with  dew.  .  .  .  The  wild 
goats  look  with  human  eyes  through  the  grating  of 
their  cao;e  and  seem  to  be  asking  "Whv  are  we  here?" 
The  captain  stands  still  as  before  and  looks  intently 
into  the  distance.   .   .   . 

A  mountainous  shore  stretches  on  the  left.  .  .  . 
Elborus  is  seen  from  behind  the  mountains. 

*  Chekhov's  presentiment  about  the  captain  was  partly  ful- 
filled: that  very  autumn  the  Dir  was  wrecked  on  the  shores  of 

Alupka. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  97 

A  blurred  sun  rises  in  the  sky.  .  .  .  One  can  see 
the  green  valley  of  Rion  and  the  Bay  of  Poti  by  the 
side  of  it. 

To  N.  A.  Leikin. 

Sumy, 
August  12. 

...  I  have  been  to  the  Crimea.  I  spent  twelve 
days  at  Suvorin's  in  Feodosia,  bathed,  idled  about; 
I  have  been  to  Aivazovsky's  estate.  From  Feodosia 
I  went  by  steamer  to  Batum.  On  the  way  I  spent 
half  a  day  at  Suhum — a  charming  little  town  buried 
in  luxuriant,  un-Russian  greenery,  and  one  day 
at  the  Monastery,  at  New  Athos.  It  is  so  lovely  there 
at  New  Athos  that  there  is  no  describing  it:  water- 
falls, eucalyptuses,  tea-plants,  cypresses,  olive-trees, 
and,  above  all,  sea  and  mountains,  mountains,  moun- 
tains. From  Athos  and  Suhum  I  went  to  Poti;  the 
River  Rion,  renowned  for  its  valley  and  its  sturgeons, 
is  close  by.  The  vegetation  is  luxuriant.  All  the 
streets  are  planted  with  poplars.  Batum  is  a  big 
commercial  and  military,  foreign-looking,  cafe- 
chantant  sort  of  town;  you  feel  in  it  at  every  step 
that  we  have  conquered  the  Turks.  There  is  nothing 
special  about  it  (except  a  great  number  of  brothels), 
but  the  surrounding  country  is  charming.  Particu- 
larly fine  is  the  road  to  Kars  and  the  swift  river  Tcho- 
xaksu. 

The  road  from  Batum  to  Tiflis  is  poetical  and 
original;  you  look  all  the  time  out  of  window  and 
exclaim:  there  are  mountains,  tunnels,  rocks,  rivers, 
waterfalls,  big  and  little.  But  the  road  from 
Tiflis  to  Baku  is  the  abomination  of  desolation, 
a  bald  plain,   covered*  wdth   sand   and  created  for 


98  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Persians,  tarantulas,  and  phalangas  to  live  in. 
There  is  not  a  single  tree,  there  is  no  grass  .  .  . 
dreary  as  hell.  .  .  .  Baku  and  the  Caspian  Sea  are 
such  rotten  places  that  I  would  not  agree  to  live 
there  for  a  million.  There  are  no  roofs,  there  are  no 
trees  either;  Persian  faces  everywhere,  fifty  degrees 
Reaumur  of  heat,  a  smell  of  kerosine,  the  naphtha- 
soaked  mud  squelches  under  one's  feet,  the  drinking 
water  is  salt. 

.  .  .  You  have  seen  the  Caucasus.  I  believe  you 
have  seen  the  Georgian  Military  Road,  too.  If  you 
have  not  been  there  yet,  pawn  your  wives  and  chil- 
dren and  the  Oskolki^  and  go.  I  have  never  in  my 
life  seen  anything  like  it.  It  is  not  a  road,  but  un- 
broken poetry,  a  wonderful,  fantastic  story  written 
by  the  Demon  in  love  with  Tamara. 

To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Sumy, 
August  29,  1888. 

.  .  .  When  as  a  boy  I  used  to  stay  at  my  grand- 
father's on  Count  Platov's  estate,  I  had  to  sit  from 
sunrise  to  sunset  by  the  thrashing  machine  and 
write  down  the  number  of  poods  and  pounds  of  corn 
that  had  been  thrashed;  the  whistling,  the  hissing, 
and  the  bass  note,  like  the  sound  of  a  whirling  top, 
that  the  machine  makes  at  full  speed,  the  creaking 
of  the  wheels,  the  lazy  tread  of  the  oxen,  the  clouds 
of  dust,  the  grimy,  perspiring  faces  of  some  three 
score  of  men — all  this  has  stamped  itself  upon  my 
memory  like  the  Lord's  Prayer.     And  now,  too,  I 

*  Oskolki,  {i.e.,  "Chips,"  "Bits")  the  paper  of  which  Leikin 
was  editor. — Translator's  Note. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  99 

have  been  spending  hours  at  the  thrashing  and  felt 
intensely  happy.  When  the  thrashing  engine  is  at 
work  it  looks  as  though  alive;  it  has  a  cunning,  play- 
ful expression,  while  the  men  and  oxen  look  like 
machines.  In  the  district  of  Mirgorod  few  have 
thrashing  machines  of  their  own,  but  everyone  can 
hire  one.  The  engine  goes  about  the  whole  prov- 
ince drawn  by  six  oxen  and  offers  itself  to  all  who  can 
pay  for  it. 

Moscow, 
September  11. 

.  .  .  You  advise  me  not  to  hunt  after  two  hares, 
and  not  to  think  of  medical  work.  I  do  not  know 
why  one  should  not  hunt  two  hares  even  in  the  literal 
sense.  ...  I  feel  more  confident  and  more  satis- 
fied with  myself  when  I  reflect  that  I  have  two  pro- 
fessions and  not  one.  Medicine  is  my  lawful  wife 
and  literature  is  my  mistress.  When  I  get  tired  of 
one  I  spend  the  night  with  the  other.  Though  it's 
disorderly,  it's  not  so  dull,  and  besides  neither  of 
them  loses  anything  from  my  infidelity.  If  I  did  not 
have  my  medical  work  I  doubt  if  I  could  have  given 
my  leisure  and  my  spare  thoughts  to  literature. 
There  is  no  discipline  in  me. 

Moscow, 
October  27,  1888. 

...  In  conversation  with  my  literary  colleagues 
I  always  insist  that  it  is  not  the  artist's  business  to 
solve  problems  that  require  a  specialist's  knowledge. 
It  is  a  bad  thing  if  a  writer  tackles  a  subject  he  does 
not  understand.  We  have  specialists  for  dealing 
with  special  questions:  it  is  their  business  to  judge 


100  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

of  the  commune,  of  the  future  of  capitahsm,  of  the 
evils  of  drunkenness,  of  boots,  of  the  diseases  of 
women.  An  artist  must  only  judge  of  what  he  un- 
derstands, his  field  is  just  as  limited  as  that  of  any 
other  specialist — I  repeat  this  and  insist  on  it  al- 
ways. That  in  his  sphere  there  are  no  questions, 
but  only  answers,  can  only  be  maintained  by  those 
who  have  never  written  and  have  had  no  experience 
of  thinking  in  images.  An  artist  observes,  selects, 
guesses,  combines — and  this  in  itself  presupposes  a 
problem:  unless  he  had  set  himself  a  problem  from 
the  very  first  there  would  be  nothing  to  conjecture 
and  nothing  to  select.  To  put  it  briefly,  I  will  end 
by  using  the  language  of  psychiatry:  if  one  denies 
that  creative  work  involves  problems  and  purposes, 
one  must  admit  that  an  artist  creates  without  pre- 
meditation or  intention,  in  a  state  of  aberration; 
therefore,  if  an  author  boasted  to  me  of  having  written 
a  novel  without  a  preconceived  design,  under  a  sud- 
den inspiration,  I  should  call  him  mad. 

You  are  right  in  demanding  that  an  artist  should 
take  an  intelligent  attitude  to  his  work,  but  you 
confuse  two  things:  solving  a  problem  and  stating 
a  problem  correctly.  It  is  only  the  second  that  is 
obligatory  for  the  artist.  In  "Anna  Karenin"  and 
"Evgeny  Onyegin"  not  a  single  problem  is  solved, 
but  they  satisfy  you  completely  because  all  the  prob- 
lems are  correctly  stated  in  them.  It  is  the  business 
of  the  judge  to  put  the  right  questions,  but  the  an- 
swers must  be  given  by  the  jury  according  to  their  own 

lights. 

*  *  -jf  *  *  * 

.  .  .  You  say  that  the  hero  of  my  "Party"  is  a 
character  worth  developing.     Good  Lord!  I  am  not 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  101 

a  senseless  brute,  you  know,  I  understand  that.  I 
understand  that  I  cut  the  throats  of  my  characters 
and  spoil  them,  and  that  I  waste  good  material.  .  .  . 
To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  would  gladly  have  spent  six 
months  over  the  "Party";  I  like  taking  things  easy, 
and  see  no  attraction  in  publishing  at  headlong 
speed.  I  would  willingly,  with  pleasure,  with  feel- 
ing, in  a  leisurely  way,  describe  the  whole  of  my 
hero,  describe  the  state  of  his  mind  while  his  wife 
was  in  labour,  his  trial,  the  horrid  feeling  he  has 
after  he  is  acquitted;  I  would  describe  the  midwife 
and  the  doctors  having  tea  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
I  would  describe  the  rain.  ...  It  would  give  me 
nothing  but  pleasure  because  I  like  to  rummage 
about  and  dawdle.  But  what  am  I  to  do?  I 
begin  a  story  on  September  10th  with  the  thought 
that  I  must  finish  it  by  October  5th  at  the  latest; 
if  I  don't  I  shall  fail  the  editor  and  be  left  without 
money.  I  let  myself  go  at  the  beginning  and  write 
with  an  easy  mind;  but  by  the  time  I  get  to  the 
middle  I  begin  to  grow  timid  and  to  fear  that  my 
story  will  be  too  long:  I  have  to  remember  that  the 
Syeverny  Vyestnik  has  not  much  money,  and  that 
I  am  one  of  their  expensive  contributors.  This  is 
why  the  beginning  of  my  stories  is  always  very 
promising  and  looks  as  though  I  were  starting  on 
a  novel,  the  middle  is  huddled  and  timid,  and  the 
end  is,  as  in  a  short  sketch,  like  fireworks.  And 
so  in  planning  a  story  one  is  bound  to  think  first 
about  its  framework:  from  a  crowd  of  leading  or 
subordinate  characters  one  selects  one  person  only — 
wife  or  husband;  one  puts  him  on  the  canvas  and 
paints  him  alone,  making  him  prominent,  while  the 
others  one  scatters  over  the  canvas  like  small  coin, 


102  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

and  the  result  is  something  like  the  vault  of  heaven : 
one  big  moon  and  a  number  of  very  small  stars 
around  it.  But  the  moon  is  not  a  success  because 
it  can  only  be  understood  if  the  stars  too  are  intel- 
ligible, and  the  stars  are  not  worked  out.  And  so 
what  I  produce  is  not  literature,  but  something  like 
the  patching  of  Trishka's  coat.  What  am  I  to  do? 
I  don't  know,  I  don't  know.  I  must  trust  to  time 
which  heals  all  things. 

To  tell  the  truth  again,  I  have  not  yet  begun  my 
literary  work,  though  I  have  received  a  literary 
prize.  Subjects  for  five  stories  and  two  novels  are 
languishing  in  my  head.  One  of  the  novels  was 
thought  of  long  ago,  and  some  of  the  characters 
have  grown  old  without  managing  to  be  written.  In 
my  head  there  is  a  whole  army  of  people  asking 
to  be  let  out  and  waiting  for  the  word  of  com- 
mand. All  that  I  have  written  so  far  is  rubbish  in 
comparison  with  what  I  should  like  to  write  and 
should  write  with  rapture.  It  is  all  the  same  to  me 
whether  I  write  "The  Party"  or  "The  Lights,"  or 
a  vaudeville  or  a  letter  to  a  friend — it  is  all  dull, 
spiritless,  mechanical,  and  I  get  annoyed  with 
critics  who  attach  any  importance  to  "The  Lights," 
for  instance.  I  fancy  that  I  deceive  him  with  my 
work  just  as  I  deceive  many  people  with  my  face, 
which  looks  serious  or  over-cheerful.  I  don't  like 
being  successful;  the  subjects  which  sit  in  my  head 
are  annoyed  and  jealous  of  what  has  already  been 
written.  I  am  vexed  that  the  rubbish  has  been  done 
and  the  good  things  lie  about  in  the  lumber-room 
like  old  books.  Of  course,  in  thus  lamenting  I 
rather  exaggerate,  and  much  of  what  I  say  is  only 
my  fancy,  but  there  is  a  part  of  the  truth  in  it,  a  good 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  103 

big  part  of  it.  What  do  I  call  good?  The  images 
which  seem  best  to  me,  which  I  love  and  jealously 
guard  lest  1  spend  and  spoil  them  for  the  sake  of  some 
"Party"  written  against  time.  ...  If  my  love  is 
mistaken,  I  am  wrong,  but  then  it  may  not  be  mis- 
taken! I  am  either  a  fool  and  a  conceited  fellow 
or  I  really  am  an  organism  capable  of  being  a  good 
writer.  All  that  I  now  write  displeases  and  bores 
me,  but  what  sits  in  my  head  interests,  excites  and 
moves  me — from  which  I  conclude  that  everybody 
does  the  wrong  thing  and  I  alone  know  the  secret  of 
doing  the  right  one.  Most  likely  all  writers  think 
that.  But  the  devil  himself  would  break  his  neck 
in  these  problems. 

Money  will  not  help  me  to  decide  what  I  am  to  do 
and  how  I  am  to  act.  An  extra  thousand  roubles 
will  not  settle  matters,  and  a  hundred  thousand  is 
a  castle  in  the  air.  Besides,  when  I  have  monev — 
it  may  be  from  lack  of  habit,  I  don't  know — I  be- 
come extremely  careless  and  idle;  the  sea  seems  only 
knee-deep  to  me  then.  ...  I  need  time  and  soli- 
tude. 

November,  1888. 

In  the  November  number  of  the  Syeverny  Vyestnik 
there  is  an  article  by  the  poet  Merezhkovsky  about 
your  humble  servant.  It  is  a  long  article.  I  com- 
mend to  your  attention  the  end  of  it;  it  is  charac- 
teristic. Merezhkovsky  is  still  very  young,  a  student 
— of  science  I  believe.  Those  who  have  assimilated 
the  wisdom  of  the  scientific  method  and  learned 
to  think  scientifically  experience  many  alluring 
temptations.  Archimedes  wanted  to  turn  the 
earth     round,     and     the     present     day     hot-heads 


104  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

want  by  science  to  conceive  the  inconceivable, 
to  discover  the  physical  laws  of  creative  art,  to 
detect  the  laws  and  the  formulae  which  are  in- 
stinctively felt  by  the  artist  and  are  followed  by  him 
in  creating  music,  novels,  pictures,  etc.  Suck 
formula3  probably  exist  in  nature.  We  know  that 
A,  B,  C,  do,  re,  mi,  fa,  sol,  are  found  in  nature., 
and  so  are  curves,  straight  lines,  circles,  squares^ 
green,  blue,  and  red.  .  .  .  We  know  that  in  certain 
combinations  all  this  produces  a  melody,  or  a  poem 
or  a  picture,  just  as  simple  chemical  substances  in 
certain  combinations  produce  a  tree,  or  a  stone,  or 
the  sea;  but  all  we  know  is  that  the  combination 
exists,  while  the  law  of  it  is  hidden  from  us.  Those 
who  are  masters  of  the  scientific  method  feel  in  their 
souls  that  a  piece  of  music  and  a  tree  have  something 
in  common,  that  both  are  built  up  in  accordance 
with  equally  uniform  and  simple  laws.  Hence  the 
question:  What  are  these  laws?  And  hence  the 
temptation  to  work  out  a  physiology  of  creative  art 
(like  Boborykin),  or  in  the  case  of  younger  and 
more  diffident  writers,  to  base  their  arguments  on 
nature  and  on  the  laws  of  nature  (Merezhkovsky) . 
There  probably  is  such  a  thing  as  the  physiology  of 
creative  art,  but  we  must  nip  in  the  bud  our  dreams 
of  discovering  it.  If  the  critics  take  up  a  scientific 
attitude  no  good  will  come  of  it:  they  will  waste 
a  dozen  years,  write  a  lot  of  rubbish,  make  the 
subject  more  obscure  than  ever — and  nothing  more. 
It  is  always  a  good  thing  to  think  scientifically,  but 
the  trouble  is  that  scientific  thinking  about  creative 
art  will  be  bound  to  degenerate  in  the  end  into  search- 
ino;  for  the  "cells"  or  the  "centres"  which  control 
the  creative  faculty.     Some  stolid  German  will  dis- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  105 

cover  these  cells  somewhere  in  the  occipital  lobes, 
another  German  will  agree  with  him,  a  third  will  dis- 
agree, and  a  Russian  will  glance  through  the  article 
about  the  cells  and  reel  off  an  essay  about  it  to  the 
Syeverny  Vyestnik.  The  Vyestnik  Evropi  will  criti- 
cize the  essay,  and  for  three  years  there  will  be  in 
Russia  an  epidemic  of  nonsense  which  will  give 
money  and  popularity  to  blockheads  and  do  nothing 
but  irritate  intelligent  people. 

For  those  who  are  obsessed  with  the  scientific 
method  and  to  whom  God  has  given  the  rare  talent 
of  thinking  scientifically,  there  is  to  my  mind  only 
one  way  out — the  philosophy  of  creative  art.  One 
might  collect  together  all  the  best  works  of  art 
that  have  been  produced  throughout  the  ages  and, 
with  the  help  of  the  scientific  method,  discover  the 
common  element  in  them  which  makes  them  like 
one  another  and  conditions  their  value.  That 
common  element  will  be  the  law.  There  is  a  great 
deal  that  works  which  are  called  immortal  have  in 
common;  if  this  common  element  were  excluded 
from  each  of  them,  a  work  would  lose  its  charm 
and  its  value.  So  that  this  universal  something  is 
necessary,  and  is  the  conditio  sine  qua  non  of  every 
work  that  claims  to  be  immortal.  It  is  of  more  use 
to  young  people  to  write  critical  articles  than  poetry. 
Merezhkovsky  writes  smoothly  and  youthfully,  but 
at  every  page  he  loses  heart,  makes  reservations 
and  concessions,  and  this  means  that  he  is  not  clear 
upon  the  subject.  He  calls  me  a  poet,  he  styles 
my  stories  "novelli"  and  my  heroes  "failures" — 
that  is,  he  follows  the  beaten  track.  It  is  time  to 
give  up  these  "failures,"  superfluous  people,  etc., 
and  to  think  of  something  original.     Merezhkovsky 


106  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

calls  my  monk*  who  composes  the  songs  of  praise 
a  failure.  But  how  is  he  a  failure?  God  grant  us 
all  a  life  like  his:  he  believed  in  God,  and  he  had 
enough  to  eat  and  he  had  the  gift  of  composing 
poetry.  ...  To  divide  men  into  the  successful  and 
the  unsuccessful  is  to  look  at  human  nature  from  a 
narrow,  preconceived  point  of  view.  Are  you  a  suc- 
cess or  not?  Am  I?  Was  Napoleon?  Is  your 
servant  Vassily?  What  is  the  criterion?  One  must 
be  a  god  to  be  able  to  tell  successes  from  failures 
without  making  a  mistake. 

Moscow, 
November  7,  1888. 

...  It  is  not  the  public  that  is  to  blame  for  our 
theatres  being  so  wretched.  The  public  is  always 
and  everywhere  the  same:  intelligent  and  stupid, 
sympathetic  and  pitiless  according  to  mood.  It  has 
always  been  a  flock  which  needs  good  shepherds  and 
dogs,  and  it  has  always  gone  in  the  direction  in  which 
the  shepherds  and  the  dogs  drove  it.  You  are  in- 
dignant that  it  laughs  at  flat  witticisms  and  applauds 
sounding  phrases ;  but  then  the  very  same  stupid  pub- 
lic fills  the  house  to  hear  "Othello,"  and,  listening  to 
the  opera  "Evgeny  Onyegin,"  weeps  when  Tatyana 
writes  her  letter. 

.  .  .  The  water-carrier  has  stolen  from  somewhere 
a  Siberian  kitten  with  long  white  fur  and  black  eyes, 
and  brought  it  to  us.  This  kitten  takes  people  for 
mice:  when  it  sees  anyone  it  lies  flat  on  its  stomach, 
stalks  one's  feet  and  rushes  at  them.  This  morning 
as  I  was  pacing  up  and  down  the  room  it  several 
times  stalked  me,  and  a  la  tigre  pounced  at  mv  boots. 
*  "Easter  Eve." — Translator's  Note. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  107 

I  imagine  the  thought  of  being  more  terrible  than 
anyone  in  the  house  affords  it  the  greatest  de- 
light. 

November  11,  1888. 

I  finished  to-day  the  story*  for  the  Garshin 
sbornik:  it  is  such  a  load  off  my  mind.  In  this  story 
I  have  told  my  own  opinion — which  is  of  no  interest 
to  anyone — of  such  rare  men  as  Garshin.  I  have 
run  to  almost  2,000  lines.  I  speak  at  length  about 
prostitution,  but  settle  nothing.  Why  do  they  write 
nothing  about  prostitution  in  your  paper?  It  is  the 
most  fearful  evil,  you  know.  Our  Sobolev  street  is 
a  regular  slave-market. 

November  15,  1888. 

My  "Party"  has  pleased  the  ladies.  They  sing 
my  praises  wherever  I  go.  It  really  isn't  bad  to  be 
a  doctor  and  to  understand  what  one  is  writing  about. 
The  ladies  say  the  description  of  the  confinement  is 
true.  In  the  story  for  the  Garshin  sbornik  I  have  de- 
scribed spiritual  agony. 

{No  date),  1888. 

.  .  .  You  say  that  writers  are  God's  elect.  I 
will  not  contradict  you.  Shtcheglov  calls  me  the 
Potyomkin  of  literature,  and  so  it  is  not  for  me  to 
speak  of  the  thorny  path,  of  disappointments,  and 
so  on.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  have  ever  suffered 
more  than  shoemakers,  mathematicians,  or  railway 
guards  do;  I  do  not  know  who  speaks  through  my 
lips — God  or  someone  worse.  I  will  allow  myself 
to  mention  only  one  little  drawback  which  I  have 
experienced  and  you  probably  know  from  experience 

*  "A  Nervous  Breakdown." 


108  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

also.  It  is  this.  You  and  I  are  fond  of  ordinary 
people;  but  other  people  are  fond  of  us  because  they 
think  we  are  not  ordinary.  Me,  for  instance,  they 
invite  everywhere  and  regale  me  with  food  and  drink 
like  a  general  at  a  wedding.  My  sister  is  indignant 
that  people  on  all  sides  invite  her  simply  because 
she  is  a  writer's  sister.  No  one  wants  to  love  the 
ordinary  people  in  us.  Hence  it  follows  that  if  in 
the  eyes  of  our  friends  we  should  appear  to-morrow 
as  ordinary  mortals,  they  will  leave  off  loving  us, 
and  will  only  pity  us.  And  that  is  horrid.  It  is 
horrid,  too,  that  they  like  the  very  things  in  us  which 
we  often  dislike  and  despise  in  ourselves.  It  is  hor- 
rid that  I  was  right  when  I  wrote  the  story  "The  First- 
Class  Passenger,"  in  which  an  engineer  and  a  pro- 
fessor talk  about  fame. 

I  am  going  away  into  the  country.  Hang  them 
all!  You  have  Feodosia.  By  the  way,  about  Feo- 
dosia  and  the  Tatars.  The  Tatars  have  been  robbed 
of  their  land,  but  no  one  thinks  of  their  welfare. 
There  ought  to  be  Tatar  schools.  Write  and  suggest 
that  the  money  which  is  being  spent  on  the  sausage 
Dorpat  University,  where  useless  Germans  are  study- 
ing, should  be  devoted  to  schools  for  Tatars,  who 
are  of  use  to  Russia.  I  would  write  about  it  myself, 
but  I  don't  know  how  to. 

December  23,  1888. 

.  .  .  There  are  moments  when  I  completely  lose 
heart.  For  whom  and  for  what  do  I  write?  For 
the  public?  But  I  don't  see  it,  and  believe  in  it 
less  than  I  do  in  spooks:  it  is  uneducated,  badly 
brought  up,  and  its  best  elements  are  unfair  and 
insincere  to  us.     I  cannot  make  out  whether  this 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  109 

public  wants  me  or  not.  Burenin  says  that  it  does 
not,  and  that  I  waste  my  time  on  trifles ;  the  Academy 
has  given  me  a  prize.  The  devil  himself  could  not 
make  head  or  tail  of  it.  Write  for  the  sake  of 
money?  But  I  never  have  any  money,  and  not 
being  used  to  having  it  I  am  almost  indifl"erent  to 
it.  For  the  sake  of  money  I  work  apathetically. 
Write  for  the  sake  of  praise?  But  praise  merely 
irritates  me.  Literary  society,  students,  Plesh- 
tcheyev,  young  ladies,  etc.,  were  enthusiastic  in  their 
praises  of  my  "Nervous  Breakdown,"  but  Grigoro- 
vitch  is  the  only  one  who  has  noticed  the  description 
of  the  first  snow.  And  so  on,  and  so  on.  If  we 
had  critics  I  should  know  that  I  provide  material, 
whether  good  or  bad  does  not  matter — that  to  men 
who  devote  themselves  to  the  study  of  life  I  am 
as  necessary  as  a  star  is  to  an  astronomer.  And 
then  I  would  take  trouble  over  my  work  and  should 
know  what  I  was  working  for.  But  as  it  is  you,  I, 
Muravlin,  and  the  rest  are  like  lunatics  who  write 
books  and  plays  to  please  themselves.  To  please 
oneself  is,  of  course,  an  excellent  thing;  one  feels 
the  pleasure  while  one  is  writing,  but  afterwards? 
But  ...  I  will  shut  up.  In  short,  I  am  sorry  for 
Tatyana  Repin,*  not  because  she  poisoned  herself, 
but  because  she  lived  her  life,  died  in  agony,  and 
was  described  absolutely  to  no  purpose,  without 
any  good  to  anyone.  A  number  of  tribes,  religions, 
languages,  civilizations,  have  vanished  without  a 
trace — vanished  because  there  were  no  historians 
or  biologists.  In  the  same  way  a  number  of  lives 
and  works  of  art  disappear  before  our  very  eves 
owing   to    the   complete    absence   of   criticism.     It 

*  Suvorin's  play. — Translators  Note. 


110  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

may  be  objected  that  critics  would  have  nothing 
to  do  because  all  modern  works  are  poor  and  in- 
significant. But  this  is  a  narrow  way  of  looking 
at  things.  Life  must  be  studied  not  from  the 
pluses  alone,  but  from  the  minuses  too.  The  con- 
viction that  the  "eighties"  have  not  produced  a 
single  writer  may  in  itself  provide  material  for  five 
volumes. 

...  I  settled  down  last  night  to  write  a  story 
for  the  Novoye  Vremya,  but  a  woman  appeared  and 
dragged  me  to  see  the  poet  Palmin  who,  when  he  was 
drunk,  had  fallen  and  cut  his  forehead  to  the  bone. 
I  was  busy  over  the  drunken  fellow  for  nearly  two 
hours,  was  tired  out,  began  to  smell  of  iodoform  all 
over,  felt  cross,  and  came  home  exhausted.  .  .  .  Al- 
together my  life  is  a  dreary  one,  and  I  begin  to  get 
fits  of  hating  people  which  used  never  to  happen  to 
me  before.  Long  stupid  conversations,  visitors,  peo- 
ple asking  for  help,  and  helping  them  to  the  extent 
of  one  or  two  or  three  roubles,  spending  money  on 
cabs  for  the  sake  of  patients  who  do  not  pay  me  a 
penny — altogether  it  is  such  a  hotch-potch  that  I  feel 
like  running  away  from  home.  People  borrow 
money  from  me  and  don't  pay  it  back,  they  take  my 
books,  they  waste  my  time.  .  .  .  Blighted  love  is 
the  one  thing  that  is  missing. 

December  26,  1888. 

.  .  .  You  say  that  from  compassion  women  fall  in 
love,  from  compassion  they  get  married.  .  .  .  And 
what  about  men?  I  don't  like  realistic  writers  to 
slander  women,  but  I  don't  like  it  either  when 
people  put  women  on  a  pedestal  and  attempt  to  prove 
that  even  if  they  are  worse  than  men,  anyway  they 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  111 

are  angels  and  men  scoundrels.  Neither  men  nor 
women  are  worth  a  brass  farthing,  but  men  are  more 
just  and  more  intelligent. 

December  30,  1888. 

.  .  .  This  is  how  I  understand  my  characters.* 
Ivanov  is  a  gentleman,  a  University  man,  and  not 
remarkable  in  any  way.  He  is  excitable,  hot- 
headed, easily  carried  away,  honest  and  straight- 
forward like  most  people  of  his  class.  He  has  lived 
on  his  estate  and  served  on  the  Zemstvo.  What  he 
has  been  doing  and  how  he  has  behaved,  what  he  has 
been  interested  in  and  enthusiastic  over,  can  be  seen 
from  the  following  words  of  his,  addressed  to  the 
doctor  (Act  I.,  Scene  5) :  "Don't  marry  Jewesses 
or  neurotic  women  or  blue-stockings  .  .  .  don't 
fight  with  thousands  single-handed,  don't  wage  war 
on  windmills,  don't  batter  your  head  against  the 
wall  .  .  .  God  preserve  you  from  scientific  farming, 
wonderful  schools,  enthusiastic  speeches.  .  .  ." 
This  is  what  he  has  in  his  past.  Sarra,  who  has  seen 
his  scientific  farming  and  other  crazes,  says  about 
him  to  the  doctor:  "He  is  a  remarkable  man,  doctor, 
and  I  am  sorry  you  did  not  meet  him  tv^^o  or  three 
years  ago.  Now  he  is  depressed  and  melancholy, 
he  doesn't  talk  or  do  anything,  but  in  old  days  .  .  . 
how  charming  he  was!"  (Act  I.,  Scene  7).  His  past 
is  beautiful,  as  is  generally  the  case  with  educated 
Russians.  There  is  not,  or  there  hardly  is,  a  single 
Russian  gentleman  or  University  man  who  does  not 
boast  of  his  past.  The  present  is  always  worse  than 
the  past.  Why?  Because  Russian  excitability  has 
one  specific  characteristic:  it  is  quickly  followed  by 

*  In  the  play  "Ivanov." — Tratulator's  Note. 


112  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

exhaustion.  A  man  has  scarcely  left  the  class-room 
before  he  rushes  to  take  up  a  burden  beyond  his 
strength;  he  tackles  at  once  the  schools,  the  peas- 
ants, scientific  farming,  and  the  Vyestnik  Evropi,  he 
makes  speeches,  writes  to  the  minister,  combats  evil, 
applauds  good,  falls  in  love,  not  in  an  ordinary,  simple 
way,  but  selects  either  a  blue-stocking  or  a  neurotic 
or  a  Jewess,  or  even  a  prostitute  whom  he  tries  to 
save,  and  so  on,  and  so  on.  But  by  the  time  he  is 
thirty  or  thirty-five  he  begins  to  feel  tired  and  bored. 
He  has  not  got  decent  moustaches  yet,  but  he  already 
says  with  authority: 

"Don't  marry,  my  dear  fellow.  .  .  .  Trust  my 
experience,"  or,  "After  all,  what  does  Liberalism 
come  to?  Between  ourselves  Katkov  was  often 
right.  ..."  He  is  ready  to  reject  the  Zemstvo  and 
scientific  farming,  and  science  and  love.  My  Ivanov 
says  to  the  doctor  (Act  L,  Scene  5)  :  "You  took  your 
degree  only  last  year,  my  dear  friend,  you  are  still 
young  and  vigorous,  while  I  am  thirty-five.  I  have 
a  right  to  advise  you.  ..."  That  is  how  these 
prematurely  exhausted  people  talk.  Further  down, 
sighing  authoritatively,  he  advises:  "Don't  you  marry 
in  this  or  that  way  (see  above),  but  choose  some- 
thing commonplace,  grey,  with  no  vivid  colours  or 
superfluous  flourishes.  Altogether  build  your  life 
according  to  the  conventional  pattern.  The  greyer 
and  more  monotonous  the  background  the  better. 
-  .  .  The  life  that  I  have  led — how  tiring  it  is! 
Ah,  how  tiring!" 

Conscious  of  physical  exhaustion  and  boredom, 
he  does  not  understand  what  is  the  matter  with 
him,  and  what  has  happened.  Horrified,  he  says 
to  the  doctor  (Act  L,  Scene  3) :  "Here  you  tell  me 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  113 

she  is  soon  going  to  die  and  I  feel  neither  love  nor 
pity,  but  a  sort  of  emptiness  and  weariness.  .  .  . 
If  one  looks  at  me  from  outside  it  must  be 
horrible.  I  don't  understand  what  is  happen- 
ing to  my  soul."  Finding  themselves  in  such  a  posi- 
tion, narrow  and  unconscientious  people  generally 
throw  the  whole  blame  on  their  environment,  or 
write  themselves  down  as  Hamlets  and  superfluous 
people,  and  are  satisfied  with  that.  But  Ivanov, 
a  straightforward  man,  openly  says  to  the  doctor  and 
to  the  public  that  he  does  not  understand  his  own 
mind.  "I  don't  understand!  I  don't  understand!" 
That  he  really  doesn't  understand  can  be  seen 
from  his  long  monologue  in  Act  HI.,  where,  tete-a- 
tete  with  the  public,  he  opens  his  heart  to  it  and  even 
weeps. 

The  change  that  has  taken  place  in  him  offends 
his  sense  of  what  is  fitting.  He  looks  for  the  causes 
outside  himself  and  fails  to  find  them;  he  begins 
to  look  for  them  inside  and  finds  only  an  indefinite 
feeling  of  guilt.  It  is  a  Russian  feeling.  Whether 
there  is  a  death  or  illness  in  his  family,  whether 
he  owes  money  or  lends  it,  a  Russian  always  feels 
guilty.  Ivanov  talks  all  the  time  about  being  to 
blame  in  some  way,  and  the  feeling  of  guilt  increases 
in  him  at  every  juncture.  In  Act  I.  he  says:  "Sup- 
pose I  am  terribly  to  blame,  yet  my  thoughts  are  in  a 
tangle,  my  soul  is  in  bondage  to  a  sort  of  sloth,  and 
I  am  incapable  of  understanding  myself.  .  .  ."  In 
Act  II.  he  says  to  Sasha:  "My  conscience  aches  day 
and  night,  I  feel  that  I  am  profoundly  to  blame,  but 
in  what  exactly  I  have  done  wrong  I  cannot  make 
out." 

To  exhaustion,  boredom,  and  the  feeling  of  guilt 


114  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

add  one  more  enemy:  loneliness.  Were  Ivanov  an 
official,  an  actor,  a  priest,  a  professor,  he  would  have 
grown  used  to  his  position.  But  he  lives  on  his 
estate.  He  is  in  the  country.  His  neighbours  are 
either  drunkards  or  fond  of  cards,  or  are  of  the  same 
type  as  the  doctor.  None  of  them  care  about  his 
feelings  or  the  change  that  has  taken  place  in  him. 
He  is  lonely.  Long  winters,  long  evenings,  an  empty 
garden,  empty  rooms,  the  grumbling  Count,  the  ail- 
ing wife.  ...  He  has  nowhere  to  go.  This  is  why 
he  is  every  minute  tortured  by  the  question:  what  is 
he  to  do  with  himself? 

Now  about  his  fifth  enemy.  Ivanov  is  tired  and 
does  not  understand  himself,  but  life  has  nothing 
to  do  with  that!  It  makes  its  legitimate  demands 
upon  him,  and  whether  he  will  or  no,  he  must  settle 
problems.  His  sick  wife  is  a  problem,  his  numerous 
debts  are  a  problem,  Sasha  flinging  herself  on  his 
neck  is  a  problem.  The  way  in  which  he  settles  all 
these  problems  must  be  evident  from  his  monologue 
in  Act  III.,  and  from  the  contents  of  the  last  two 
acts.  Men  like  Ivanov  do  not  solve  difficulties  but 
collapse  under  their  weight.  They  lose  their  heads, 
gesticulate,  become  nervous,  complain,  do  silly 
things,  and  finally,  giving  rein  to  their  flabby,  un- 
disciplined nerves,  lose  the  ground  under  their  feet 
and  enter  the  class  of  the  "broken  down"  and  "mis- 
understood." 

Disappointment,  apathy,  nervous  limpness  and 
exhaustion  are  the  inevitable  consequence  of 
extreme  excitability,  and  such  excitability  is  ex- 
tremely characteristic  of  our  young  people.  Take 
literature.  Take  the  present  time.  .  .  .  Socialism 
is  one  of  the  forms  of  this  excitement.     But  where 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  115 

is  sociaKsm?  You  see  it  in  Tihomirov's  letter  to  the 
Tsar.  The  socialists  are  married  and  are  criticizing 
the  Zemstvo.  Where  is  Liberalism?  Mihailovsky 
himself  says  that  all  the  labels  have  been  mixed 
up  now.  And  what  are  all  the  Russian  enthusi- 
asms worth?  The  war  has  wearied  us,  Bulgaria  has 
wearied  us  till  we  can  only  be  ironical  about  it. 
Zucchi  has  wearied  us  and  so  has  the  comic 
opera. 

Exhaustion  (Dr.  Bertensen  will  confirm  this)  finds 
expression  not  only  in  complaining  or  the  sensation  of 
boredom.     The  life  of  an  over-tired  man  cannot  be 

It  is  very  unequal.  Over- tired  people  never  lose 
the  capacity  for  becoming  extremely  excited,  but  can- 
not keep  it  up  for  long,  and  each  excitement  is  fol- 
lowed by  still  greater  apathy.  .  .  .  Graphically,  it 
could  be  represented  like  this: 


"I 


The  fall,  as  you  see,  is  not  continuous  but  broken. 
Sasha  declares  her  love  and  Ivanov  cries  out  in 
ecstasy,  "A  new  life!" — and  next  morning  he  be- 
lieves in  this  new  life  as  little  as  he  does  in  spooks 
(the  monologue  in  Act  HL) ;  his  wife  insults  him, 
and,  fearfully  worked  up  and  beside  himself  with 
anger,  he  flings  a  cruel  insult  at  her.  He  is  called  a 
scoundrel.  This  is  either  fatal  to  his  tottering  brain, 
or  stimulates  him  to  a  fresh  paroxysm  and  he  pro- 
nounces sentence  on  himself. 


116  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Not  to  tire  you  out  altogether  I  pass  now  to  Dr. 
Lvov.  He  is  the  type  of  an  honest,  straightforward, 
hotheaded,  but  narrow  and  uncompromising  man. 
Clever  people  say  of  such  men:  "He  is  stupid  but 
his  heart  is  in  the  right  place."  Anything  like  width 
of  outlook  or  unreflecting  feeling  is  foreign  to  Lvov. 
He  is  the  embodiment  of  a  programme,  a  v/alking 
tendency.  He  looks  through  a  narrow  frame  at 
every  person  and  event,  he  judges  everything  accord- 
ing to  preconceived  notions.  Those  who  shout, 
"Make  way  for  honest  labour!"  are  an  object  of 
worship  to  him;  those  who  do  not  shout  it  are  scoun- 
drels and  exploiters.  There  is  no  middle.  He  has 
been  brought  up  on  Mihailov's*  novels ;  at  the  theatre 
he  has  seen  on  the  stage  "new  men,"  i.e.,  the  ex- 
ploiters and  sons  of  our  age,  painted  by  the  modern 
playwrights.  He  has  stored  it  all  up,  and  so  much 
so,  that  when  he  reads  "Rudin"  he  is  sure  to  be 
asking  himself,  "Is  Rudin  a  scoundrel  or  not?" 
Literature  and  the  stage  have  so  educated  him 
that  he  approaches  every  character  in  real  life  and 
in  fiction  with  this  question.  ...  It  is  not  enough 
for  him  that  all  men  are  sinners.  He  wants  saints 
and  villains! 

He  was  prejudiced  before  he  came  to  the  district. 
He  at  once  classed  all  the  rich  peasants  as  exploiters, 
and  Ivanov,  whom  he  could  not  understand,  as  a 
scoundrel.  Why,  the  man  has  a  sick  wife  and  he 
goes  to  see  a  rich  lady  neighbour — of  course  he  is  a 
scoundrel!  It  is  obvious  that  he  is  kilhng  his  wife 
in  order  to  marry  an  heiress. 

Lvov  is  honest  and  straightforward,  and  he  blurts 

*  The   author   of  second-rate  works   inculcating   civic  virtue 
with  a  revolutionary  bias. — Translator's  Note. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  117 

out  the  truth  without  sparing  himself.  If  necessary, 
he  will  throw  a  bomb  at  a  carriage,  give  a  school  in- 
spector a  blow  in  the  face,  or  call  a  man  a  scoundrel. 
He  will  not  stop  at  anything.  He  never  feels  remorse 
— it  is  his  mission  as  "an  honest  worker"  to  fight 
"the  powers  of  darkness"! 

Such  people  are  useful,  and  are  for  the  most  part 
attractive.  To  caricature  them,  even  in  the  interests 
of  the  play,  is  unfair  and,  indeed,  unnecessary. 
True,  a  caricature  is  more  striking,  and  therefore 
easier  to  understand,  but  it  is  better  to  put  your 
colour  on  too  faint  than  too  strong. 

i\ow  about  the  women.  What  do  they  love 
Ivanov  for?  Sarra  loves  him  because  he  is  a  fine 
man,  because  he  has  enthusiasm,  because  he  is 
brilliant  and  speaks  with  as  much  heat  as  Lvov  does 
(Act  L,  Scene  7).  She  loves  him  so  long  as 
he  is  excited  and  interesting;  but  when  he  begins 
to  grow  misty  in  her  eyes,  and  to  lose  definiteness 
of  outline,  she  ceases  to  understand  him,  and 
at  the  end  of  Act  HL  speaks  out  plainly  and 
sharply. 

Sasha  is  a  young  woman  of  the  newest  type.  She 
is  well-educated,  intelligent,  honest,  and  so  on.  In 
the  realm  of  the  blind  a  one-eyed  man  is  king,  and  so 
she  favours  Ivanov  in  spite  of  his  being  thirty-five. 
He  is  better  than  anyone  else.  She  knew  him  when 
she  was  a  child  and  saw  his  work  close  at  hand,  at  the 
period  before  he  was  exhausted.  He  is  a  friend  of 
her  father's. 

She  is  a  female  who  is  not  won  by  the  vivid  plumage 
of  the  male,  not  by  their  courage  and  dexterity,  but 
by  their  complaints,  whinings  and  failures.  She  is 
the  sort  of  girl  who  loves  a  man  when  he  is  going 


118  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

downhill.  The  moment  Ivanov  loses  heart  the  young 
lady  is  on  the  spot!  That's  just  what  she  was  wait- 
ing for.  Just  think  of  it,  she  now  has  such  a  holy, 
such  a  grateful  task  before  her!  She  will  raise  up 
the  fallen  one,  set  him  on  his  feet,  make  him  happy. 
...  It  is  not  Ivanov  she  loves,  but  this  task. 
Argenton  in  Daudet's  book  says,  "Life  is  not  a  novel." 
Sasha  does  not  know  this.  She  does  not  know  that 
for  Ivanov  love  is  only  a  fresh  complication,  an  extra 
stab  in  the  back.  And  what  comes  of  it?  She 
struggles  with  him  for  a  whole  year  and,  instead  of 
being  raised,  he  sinks  lower  and  lower. 

...  In  my  description  of  Ivanov  there  often  oc- 
curs the  word  "Russian."  Don't  be  cross  about  it. 
When  I  was  writing  the  play  I  had  in  mind  only  the 
things  that  really  matter — that  is,  only  the  typical 
Russian  characteristics.  Thus  the  extreme  excita- 
bility, the  feeling  of  guilt,  the  liability  to  become 
exhausted  are  purely  Russian.  Germans  are  never 
excited,  and  that  is  why  Germany  knows  nothing  of 
disappointed,  superfluous,  or  over-tired  people.  .  .  . 
The  excitability  of  the  French  is  always  maintained 
at  one  and  the  same  level,  and  makes  no  sudden 
bounds  or  falls,  and  so  a  Frenchman  is  normally 
excited  down  to  a  decrepit  old  age.  In  other  words, 
the  French  do  not  have  to  waste  their  strength  in 
over-excitement;  they  spend  their  powers  sensibly, 
and  do  not  go  bankrupt. 

.  .  .  Ivanov  and  Lvov  appear  to  my  imagination 
to  be  living  people.  I  tell  you  honestly,  in  all  con- 
science, these  men  were  born  in  my  head,  not  by 
accident,  not  out  of  sea  foam,  or  preconceived  "in- 
tellectual" ideas.  They  are  the  result  of  observing 
and  studying  life.     They  stand  in  my  brain,  and  I 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  119 

feel  that  I  have  not  falsified  the  truth  nor  exaggerated 
it  a  jot.  If  on  paper  they  have  not  come  out  clear 
and  living,  the  fault  is  not  in  them  but  in  me,  for  not 
being  able  to  express  my  thoughts.  It  shows  it  is  too 
early  for  me  to  begin  writing  plays. 

January  7,  1889. 

...  I  have  been  cherishing  the  bold  dream  of 
summing  up  all  that  has  hitherto  been  written  about 
whining,  miserable  people,  and  with  my  Ivanov  say- 
ing the  last  word.  It  seemed  to  me  that  all  Russian 
novelists  and  playwrights  were  drawn  to  depict  de- 
spondent men,  but  that  they  all  wrote  instinctively, 
having  no  definite  image  or  views  on  the  subject.  As 
far  as  my  design  goes  I  was  on  the  right  track,  but  the 
execution  is  good  for  nothing.  I  ought  to  have 
waited!  I  am  glad  I  did  not  listen  to  Grigorovitch 
two  or  three  years  ago,  and  write  a  novel !  I  can  just 
imagine  what  a  lot  of  good  material  I  should  have 
spoiled.  He  says:  "Talent  and  freshness  overcome 
everything."  It  is  more  true  to  say  that  talent  and 
freshness  can  spoil  a  great  deal.  In  addition  to 
plenty  of  material  and  talent,  one  wants  something 
else  which  is  no  less  important.  One  wants  to  be  ma- 
ture— that  is  one  thing;  and  for  another  the  feeling 
of  personal  freedom  is  essential,  and  that  feeling  has 
only  recently  begun  to  develop  in  me.  I  used  not  to 
have  it  before ;  its  place  was  successfully  filled  by  my 
frivolity,  carelessness,  and  lack  of  respect  for  my  work. 

What  writers  belonging  to  the  upper  class  have 
received  from  nature  for  nothing,  plebeians  acquire 
at  the  cost  of  their  youth.  Write  a  story  of  how  a 
young  man,  the  son  of  a  serf,  w^ho  has  ser^^ed  in  a 
shop,  sung  in  a  choir,  been  at  a  high  school  and  a 


120  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

university,  who  has  been  brought  up  to  respect  every- 
one of  higher  rank  and  position,  to  kiss  priests'  hands, 
to  reverence  other  people's  ideas,  to  be  thankful  for 
every  morsel  of  bread,  who  has  been  many  times 
whipped,  who  has  trudged  from  one  pupil  to  another 
without  goloshes,  who  has  been  used  to  fighting,  and 
tormenting  animals,  who  has  liked  dining  with  his 
rich  relations,  and  been  hypocritical  before  God  and 
men  from  the  mere  consciousness  of  his  own  insignifi- 
cance— write  how  this  young  man  squeezes  the  slave 
out  of  himself,  drop  by  drop,  and  how  waking 
one  beautiful  morning  he  feels  that  he  has  no 
longer  a  slave's  blood  in  his  veins  but  a  real 
man's.   .   .   . 

March  5,  1889. 

.  .  .  Last  night  I  drove  out  of  town  and  listened  to 
the  gypsies.  They  sing  well,  the  wild  creatures. 
Their  singing  reminds  me  of  a  train  falhng  off  a  high 
bank  in  a  violent  snow-storm:  there  is  a  lot  of  tur- 
moil, screeching  and  banging. 

...  I  bought  Dostoevsky  in  your  shop  and  am 
now  reading  him.  It  is  fine,  but  very  long  and  in- 
discreet.    It  is  over-pretentious. 

Sumy, 
lintvaryovs'  estate, 
May,  1889. 

.  .  .  Among  other  things  I  am  reading  Gontcha- 
rov  and  wondering.  I  wonder  how  I  could  have 
considered  Gontcharov  a  first-rate  writer.  His 
"Oblomov"  is  not  really  good.  Oblomov  himself  is 
exaggerated  and  is  not  so  striking  as  to  make  it 
worth  while  to  write  a  whole  book  about  him.  A 
flabby  sluggard  like  so  many,  a  commonplace,  petty 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  121 

nature  without  any  complexity  in  it:  to  raise  this 
person  to  the  rank  of  a  social  type  is  to  make  too 
much  oi  iuni.  I  ask  myself,  what  would  Oblomov 
be  if  he  had  not  been  a  sluggard?  And  I  answer 
that  he  would  not  have  been  anything.  And  if  so, 
let  him  snore  in  peace.  The  other  characters  are 
trivial,  with  a  flavour  of  Leikin  about  them;  they  are 
taken  at  random,  and  are  half  unreal.  They  are  not 
characteristic  of  the  epoch  and  give  one  nothing  new. 
Stoltz  does  not  inspire  me  with  any  confidence.  The 
author  says  he  is  a  splendid  fellow,  but  I  don't  believe 
him.  He  is  a  sly  brute,  who  thinks  very  well  of 
himself  and  is  very  complacent.  He  is  half  unreal, 
and  three-quarters  on  stilts.  Olga  is  unreal  and  is 
dragged  in  by  the  tail.  And  the  chief  trouble  is  that 
the  whole  novel  is  cold,  cold,  cold.  I  scratch  out 
Gontcharov  from  the  list  of  my  demi-gods. 

But  how  direct,  how  powerful  is  Gogol,  and  what 
an  artist  he  is!  His  "Marriage"  alone  is  worth  two 
hundred  thousand  roubles.  It  is  simply  delicious, 
and  that  is  all  about  it.  He  is  the  greatest  of  Rus- 
sian writers.  In  "The  Inspector  General"  the  first 
act  is  the  best,  in  "The  Marriage"  the  third  act  is  the 
worst.      I  am  going  to  read  it  aloud  to  my  people. 

May  4,  1889. 

.  .  .  Nature  is  an  excellent  sedative.  It  pacifies 
— that  is,  it  makes  one  indifferent.  And  it  is  essen- 
tial in  this  world  to  be  indifferent.  Only  those  who 
are  indifferent  are  able  to  see  things  clearly,  to  be 
just  and  to  work.  Of  course,  I  am  only  speaking  of 
intelligent  people  of  fine  natures;  the  empty  and 
selfish  are  indifferent  enough  any  way. 

You  say  that  I  have  grown  lazy.     That  does  not 


122  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

mean  that  I  am  now  lazier  than  I  used  to  be.  I  work 
now  as  much  as  I  did  three  or  five  years  ago.  To 
work  and  to  look  as  though  I  were  working  from  nine 
in  the  morning  till  dinner,  and  from  evening  tea  till 
bedtime  has  become  a  habit  with  me,  and  in  that 
respect  I  am  just  like  a  government  clerk.  And  if 
my  work  does  not  produce  two  novels  a  month  or  an 
income  of  ten  thousand,  it  is  not  my  laziness  that  is 
at  fault,  but  my  fundamental,  psychological  peculiari- 
ties. I  do  not  care  enough  for  money  to  succeed  in 
medicine,  and  for  literature  I  have  not  enough  pas- 
sion and  therefore  not  enough  talent.  The  fire 
burns  in  me  slowly  and  evenly,  without  suddenly 
spluttering  and  flaring  up,  and  this  is  why  it  does  not 
happen  to  me  to  write  three  or  four  signatures  a 
night,  or  to  be  so  carried  away  by  work  as  to  prevent 
myself  from  going  to  bed  if  I  am  sleepy;  this  is  why 
I  commit  no  particular  follies  nor  do  anything  par- 
ticularly wise. 

I  am  afraid  that  in  this  respect  I  resemble  Gont- 
charov,  whom  I  don't  like,  who  is  ten  heads  taller 
than  I  am  in  talent.  I  have  not  enough  passion ;  add 
to  that  this  sort  of  lunacy:  for  the  last  two  years  I 
have  for  no  reason  at  all  ceased  to  care  about  seeing 
my  work  in  print,  have  become  indifferent  to  re- 
views, to  literary  conversations,  to  gossip,  to  success 
and  failure,  to  good  pay — in  short,  I  have  gone  down- 
right silly.  There  is  a  sort  of  stagnation  in  my  soul. 
I  explain  it  by  the  stagnation  in  my  personal  life.  I 
am  not  disappointed,  I  am  not  tired,  I  am  not  de- 
pressed, but  simply  everything  has  suddenly  become 
less  interesting.  I  must  do  something  to  rouse  my- 
self. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  123 

May  7. 

I  have  read  Bourget's  "Disciple"  in  the  Russian 
translation.  This  is  how  it  strikes  me.  Bourget  is 
a  gifted,  very  intelligent  and  cultured  man.  He  is  as 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  method  of  the  natural 
sciences,  and  as  imbued  with  it  as  though  he  had 
taken  a  good  degree  in  science  or  medicine.  He  is 
not  a  stranger  in  the  domain  he  proposes  to  deal  with 
— a  merit  absent  in  Russian  writers  both  new  and  old. 

.  .  .  The  novel  is  interesting.  I  have  read  it  and 
understand  why  you  were  so  absorbed  by  it.  It  is 
clever,  interesting,  in  ulaces  wittv.  somewhat  fan- 
tastic. As  to  its  defects,  the  chief  of  them  is  his  pre- 
tentious crusade  against  materialism.  Forgive  me, 
but  I  can't  understand  such  crusades.  They  never 
lead  to  anything  and  only  bring  needless  confusion 
into  people's  thoughts.  Whom  is  the  crusade 
against,  and  what  is  its  object?  Where  is  the  enemy 
and  what  is  there  dangerous  about  him?  In  the  first 
place,  the  materialistic  movement  is  not  a  school  or 
tendency  in  the  narrow  journalistic  sense;  it  is  not 
something  passing  or  accidental;  it  is  necessary,  in- 
evitable, and  beyond  the  power  of  man.  All  that 
lives  on  earth  is  bound  to  be  materialistic.  In 
animals,  in  savages,  in  Moscow  merchants,  all  that 
is  higher  and  non-animal  is  conditioned  by  an  un- 
conscious instinct,  while  all  the  rest  is  material,  and 
they  of  course  cannot  help  it.  Beings  of  a  higher 
order,  thinking  men,  are  also  bound  to  be  materialists. 
They  seek  for  truth  in  matter,  for  there  is  nowhere 
else  to  seek  for  it,  since  they  see,  hear,  and  sense 
matter  alone.  Of  necessity  they  can  only  seek  for 
truth  where  their  microscopes,  lancets,  and  knives 


124  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

are  of  use  to  them.  To  forbid  a  man  to  follow  the 
materialistic  line  of  thought  is  equivalent  to  forbid- 
ding him  to  seek  truth.  Outside  matter  there  is 
neither  knowledge  nor  experience,  and  consequently 
there  is  no  truth.   .   .   . 

I  think  that  when  dissecting  a  corpse,  the  most 
inveterate  spirituahst  will  be  bound  to  ask  him- 
self, "Where  is  the  soul  here?"  And  if  one  knows 
how  great  is  the  likeness  between  bodily  and  mental 
diseases,  and  that  both  are  treated  by  the  same 
remedies,  one  cannot  help  refusing  to  separate  the 
soul  from  the  body. 

...  To  speak  of  the  danger  and  harm  of  material- 
ism, and  even  more  to  fight  against  it,  is,  to  say  the 
least,  premature.  We  have  not  enough  data  to 
draw  up  an  indictment.  There  are  many  theories 
and  suppositions,  but  no  facts.  .  .  .  The  priests 
complain  of  unbelief,  immorality,  and  so  on.  There 
is  no  unbelief.  People  believe  in  something,  what- 
ever it  may  be.   .  .   . 

As  to  immorality,  it  is  not  people  like  Mendeleyev 
but  poets,  abbots,  and  personages  regularly  attend- 
ing Embassy  churches,  who  have  the  reputation  of 
being  perverted  debauchees,  libertines,  and  drunk- 
ards. 

In  short,  I  cannot  understand  Bourget's  crusade. 
If,  in  starting  upon  it,  he  had  at  the  same  time  taken 
the  trouble  to  point  out  to  the  materialists  an  in- 
corporeal God  in  the  sky,  and  to  point  to  Him  in  such 
a  way  that  they  should  see  Him,  that  would  be  an- 
other matter,  and  I  should  understand  what  he  is 
driving  at. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  125 

May  14,  1889. 

.  .  .  You  want  to  know  if  the  lady  doctor  hates 
you  as  before.  Alas!  she  has  grown  stouter  and 
much  more  resigned,  which  I  do  not  like  at  all. 
There  are  not  many  women  doctors  left  on  earth. 
They  are  disappearing  and  dying  out  like  the 
branches  in  the  Byelovyezhsky  forest.  Some  die  of 
consumption,  others  become  mystics,  some  marry 
widowed  squadron-commanders,  some  still  try  to 
stand  firm,  but  are  obviously  losing  heart.  Prob- 
ably the  first  tailors  and  the  first  astrologers  also  died 
out  rapidly.  Life  is  hard  on  those  who  have  the 
temerity  first  to  enter  upon  an  unknown  path.  The 
vanguard  always  has  a  bad  time  of  it. 

May  15,  1889. 

If  you  have  not  gone  abroad  yet,  I  will  answer 
your  letter  about  Bourget.  .  .  .  You  are  speaking 
of  the  "right  to  live"  of  this  or  that  branch  of  knowl- 
edge; I  am  speaking  of  peace,  not  of  rights.  I  want 
people  not  to  see  war  where  there  is  none.  Different 
branches  of  knowledge  have  always  lived  together  in 
peace.  Anatomy  and  belles-lettres  are  of  equally 
noble  descent;  they  have  the  same  purpose  and  the 
same  enemy — the  devil — and  there  is  absolutely* 
nothing  for  them  to  fight  about.  There  is  no 
struggle  for  existence  between  them.  If  a  man 
knows  about  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  he  is  rich; 
if  he  also  learns  the  history  of  religion  and  the  song 
"I  remember  a  marvellous  moment,"  he  becomes 
richer,  not  poorer — that  is  to  say,  we  are  concerned 
with  pluses  alone.     This  is  why  geniuses  have  never 


126  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

fought,  and  in  Goethe  the  poet  hved  amicably  side 
by  side  with  the  scientist. 

It  is  not  branches  of  knowledge  such  as  poetry 
and  anatomy,  but  errors — that  is  to  say,  men — that 
fight  with  one  another.  When  a  man  fails  to  under- 
stand something  he  is  conscious  of  a  discord,  and 
seeks  for  the  cause  of  it  not  in  himself,  as  he  should, 
but  outside  himself — hence  the  war  with  what  he 
does  not  understand.  In  the  middle  ages  alchemy 
was  gradually  in  a  natural,  peaceful  way  changing 
into  chemistry,  and  astrology  into  astronomy;  the 
monks  did  not  understand,  saw  a  conflict  and  fought 
against  it.  Just  such  a  belligerent  Spanish  monk 
was  our  Pisarev  in  the  sixties. 

Bourget,  too,  is  fighting.  You  say  he  is  not,  and  I 
say  he  is.  Imagine  his  novel  falling  into  the  hands 
of  a  man  whose  children  are  studying  in  the  faculty 
of  science,  or  of  a  bishop  who  is  looking  for  a  subject 
for  his  Sunday  sermon.  Will  the  effect  be  anything 
like  peace?  It  will  not.  Or  imagine  the  novel 
catching  the  eye  of  an  anatomist  or  a  physiologist, 
or  any  such.  It  will  not  breathe  peace  into  any- 
one's soul;  it  will  irritate  those  who  know  and  give 
false  ideas  to  those  who  don't. 


To  A.  N.  Pleshtcheyev. 

Moscow, 
September  30,  1889. 

...  I  do  not  think  I  ought  to  change  the  title  of 
the  story.*  The  wags  who  will,  as  you  foretell, 
make  jokes  about  "A  Dreary  Story,"  are  so  dull  that 

*  "A  Dreary  Story." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  127 

one  need  not  fear  them ;  and  if  someone  makes  a  good 
joke  I  shall  be  glad  to  have  given  him  the  occasion 
for  it.  The  professor  could  not  write  about  Katya's 
husband  because  he  did  not  know  him,  and  Katya 
does  not  say  anything  about  him;  besides,  one  of  my 
hero's  chief  characteristics  is  that  he  cares  far  too 
little  about  the  inner  life  of  those  who  surround  him, 
and  while  people  around  him  are  weeping,  making 
mistakes,  telling  lies,  he  calmly  talks  about  the  the- 
atre or  literature.  Were  he  a  different  sort  of  man, 
Liza  and  Katya  might  not  have  come  to  grief. 

October,  1889. 

I  am  afraid  of  those  who  look  for  a  tendency  be- 
tween the  lines,  and  who  are  determined  to  regard 
me  either  as  a  liberal  or  as  a  conservative.  I  am  not 
a  liberal,  not  a  conservative,  not  a  believer  in  gradual 
progress,  not  a  monk,  not  an  indifferentist.  I  should 
like  to  be  a  free  artist  and  nothing  more,  and  I  regret 
that  God  has  not  given  me  the  power  to  be  one.  I 
hate  lying  and  violence  in  all  their  forms,  and  am 
equally  repelled  by  the  secretaries  of  consistories  and 
by  Notovitch  and  Gradovsky.  Pharisaism,  stupidity 
and  despotism  reign  not  in  merchants'  houses  and 
prisons  alone.  I  see  them  in  science,  in  literature, 
in  the  younger  generation.  .  .  .  That  is  why  I  have 
no  preference  either  for  gendarmes,  or  for  butchers, 
or  for  scientists,  or  for  writers,  or  for  the  younger 
generation.  I  regard  trade-marks  and  labels  as  a 
superstition.  My  holy  of  holies  is  the  human  body, 
health,  intelligence,  talent,  inspiration,  love,  and  the 
most  absolute  freedom — freedom  from  violence  and 
lying,  whatever  forms  they  may  take.  This  is  the 
programme  I  would  follow  if  I  were  a  great  artist. 


128  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


Moscow, 
February  15,  1890. 

I  answer  you,  dear  Alexey  Nikolaevitch,  at  once 
on  receiving  your  letter.  It  was  your  name-day,  and 
I  forgot  it ! !  Forgive  me,  dear  friend,  and  accept 
my  belated  congratulations. 

Did  you  really  not  like  the  "Kreutzer  Sonata"?  I 
don't  say  it  is  a  work  of  genius  for  all  time,  of  that  I 
am  no  judge;  but  to  my  thinking,  among  the  mass  of 
all  that  is  written  now,  here  and  abroad,  one  scarcely 
could  find  anything  else  as  powerful  both  in  the 
gravity  of  its  conception  and  the  beauty  of  its  execu- 
tion. To  say  nothing  of  its  artistic  merits,  which  in 
places  are  striking,  one  must  be  grateful  to  the  novel, 
if  only  because  it  is  keenly  stimulating  to  thought. 
As  one  reads  it,  one  can  scarcely  refrain  from  crying 
out:  "That's  true,"  or  "That's  absurd."  It  is  true 
it  has  some  very  annoying  defects.  Apart  from  all 
those  you  enumerate,  it  has  one  for  which  one  can- 
not readily  forgive  the  author — that  is,  the  audacity 
with  which  Tolstoy  holds  forth  about  what  he  doesn't 
know  and  is  too  obstinate  to  care  to  understand. 
Thus  his  statements  about  syphilis,  foundling  hos- 
pitals, the  aversion  of  women  for  the  sexual  relation, 
and  so  on,  are  not  merely  open  to  dispute,  but  show 
him  up  as  an  ignoramus  who  has  not,  in  the  course 
of  his  long  life,  taken  the  trouble  to  read  two  or  three 
books  written  by  specialists.  But  yet  these  defects 
fly  away  like  feathers  in  the  wind;  one  simply  does 
not  notice  them  in  face  of  the  real  worth  of  the  story, 
or,  if  one  notices  them,  it  is  only  with  a  little  vexa- 
tion that  the  story  has  not  escaped  the  fate  of  all  the 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  129 

works  of  man,  all  imperfect  and  never  free  from 
blemish. 

My  Petersburg  friends  and  acquaintances  are 
angry  with  me?  What  for?  For  my  not  having 
bored  them  enough  with  my  presence,  which  has  for 
so  long  been  a  bore  to  myself!  Soothe  their  minds. 
Tell  them  that  in  Petersburg  I  ate  a  great  many  din- 
ners and  a  great  many  suppers,  but  did  not  fascinate 
one  lady;  that  every  day  I  was  confident  of  leaving 
by  the  evening  train,  that  I  was  detained  by  my 
friends  and  by  The  Marine  Almanack,  the  whole  of 
which  I  had  to  look  through  from  the  year  1852. 
While  I  was  in  Petersburg,  I  got  through  in  one 
month  more  than  my  young  friends  would  in  a  year. 
Let  them  be  angry,  though ! 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

I  sit  all  day  long  reading  and  making  extracts.  I 
have  nothing  in  my  head  or  on  paper  except  Sahalin. 
Mental  obsession.     Mania  Sachahnosa. 

Not  long  ago  I  dined  with  Madame  Yermolov.* 
A  wild-flower  thrust  into  the  same  nosegay  with  the 
carnation  was  the  more  fragrant  for  the  good  com- 
pany it  had  kept.  So  I,  after  dining  with  the  star, 
was  aware  of  a  halo  round  my  head  for  two  days 
afterwards  .   .   . 

Good-bye,  my  dear  friend;  come  and  see 
us.   .   .   . 

*  The  celebrated  actress. — Translator's  Note. 


130  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Moscow, 
February  23,  1890. 

.  .  .  My  brother  Alexandr  is  a  slow-witted 
creature;  he  is  enthusiastic  over  Ornatsky's  mission- 
ary speech,  in  which  he  says  that  the  natives  do  not 
become  Christians  because  they  are  waiting  for  a 
special  ukaz  (that  is,  command)  from  the  Tsar  on 
the  subject  and  are  waiting  for  their  chiefs  to  be  bap- 
tized .  .  .  (by  force — be  it  understood).  This 
eloquent  pontifex  says,  too,  that  the  native  priests 
ought,  in  view  of  their  ascetic  manner  of  life,  to  be 
removed  from  the  natives  and  put  into  special  institu- 
tions somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  monasteries.  A 
nice  set  of  people  and  no  mistake!  They  have 
wasted  two  million  roubles,  they  send  out  every  year 
from  the  academy  dozens  of  missionaries  who  cost 
the  treasury  and  the  people  large  sums,  yet  they  can- 
not convert  the  natives,  and  what  is  more,  want  the 
police  and  the  military  to  help  them  with  fire  and 
sword.   .   .   . 

If  you  have  Madame  Tsebrikov's  article,  do  not 
trouble  to  send  it.  Such  articles  give  no  information 
and  only  waste  time;  I  want  facts.  Indeed,  in  Rus- 
sia there  is  a  terrible  poverty  of  facts,  and  a  terrible 
abundance  of  reflections  of  all  sorts. 

February  28. 

.  .  .  To-morrow  is  spring,  and  within  ten  to  fif- 
teen days  the  larks  will  come  back.  But  alas! — the 
coming  spring  seems  strange  to  me,  for  I  am  going 
away  from  it. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  131 

In  Sahalin  there  is  very  good  fish,  but  there  are  no 
hot  drinks.   .   .   . 

Our  geologists,  ichthyologists,  zoologists  and  so  on, 
are  fearfully  uneducated  people.  They  write  such  a 
vile  jargon  that  it  not  only  bores  one  to  read  it,  but 
one  actually  has  at  times  to  remodel  the  sentences  be- 
fore one  can  understand  them;  on  the  other  hand, 
they  have  solemnity  and  earnestness  enough  and  to 
spare.      It's  really  beastly.   .   .   . 


March  4. 

I  have  sent  you  to-day  two  stories:  Filippov's  (he 
was  here  yesterday)  and  Yezhov's.  I  have  not  had 
time  to  read  the  latter,  and  I  think  it  is  as  well  to  say, 
once  for  all,  that  I  am  not  responsible  for  what  I  send 
you.  My  handwriting  on  the  address  does  not  mean 
that  I  like  the  story. 

Poor  Yezhov  has  been  to  see  me;  he  sat  near  the 
table  crying:  his  young  wife  is  in  consumption.  He 
must  take  her  at  once  to  the  south.  To  my  ques- 
tion whether  he  had  money  he  answered  that  he  had. 
.  .  .  It's  vile  catch-cold  weather;  the  skv  itself 
is  sneezing.  I  can't  bear  to  look  at  it.  .  .  .  I  have 
already  begun  writing  of  Sahalin.  I  have  written 
five  pages.  It  reads  all  right,  as  though  written  with 
intelligence  and  authority  ...  I  quote  foreign 
authors  second-hand,  but  minutely  and  in  a  tone  as 
though  I  could  speak  every  foreign  language  per- 
fectly.    It's  regular  swindling. 

Yezhov  has  upset  me  with  his  tears.  He  reminded 
me  of  something,  and  I  was  sorry  for  him  too. 

Don't  forget  us  sinners. 


132  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

To    N.    M.    LiNTVARYOV. 

Moscow, 
March  5,  1890. 

...  As  for  me,  I  have  a  cough  too,  but  I  am  alive 
and  I  believe  Vm  well.  I  shan't  be  with  you  this 
summer,  as  I  am  going  in  April,  on  affairs  of  my  own, 
to  the  island  of  Sahalin,  and  shall  not  be  back  till 
December.  I  am  going  across  Siberia  (eleven  thou- 
sand versts)  and  shall  come  back  by  sea.  I  believe 
Misha  wrote  to  you  as  though  someone  were  commis- 
sioning me  to  go,  but  that's  nonsense.  I  am  com- 
missioning myself  to  go,  on  my  own  account.  There 
are  lots  of  bears  and  escaped  convicts  in  Sahalin,  so 
that  in  case  messieurs  the  wild  beasts  dine  off  me  or 
some  tramp  cuts  my  throat,  I  beg  you  not  to  remem- 
ber evil  against  me. 

Of  course  if  I  have  the  time  and  the  skill  to  write 
what  I  want  to  about  Sahalin,  I  shall  send  you  the 
book  immediately  that  it  comes  into  the  world;  it 
will  be  dull,  a  specialist's  book  consisting  of  nothing 
but  figures,  but  let  me  count  upon  your  indulgence: 
you  will  suppress  your  yawns  as  you  read  it.   .  .   . 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 


Moscow, 

March  9. 


About  Sahalin  we  are  both  mistaken,  but  you  prob- 
ably more  than  I.  I  am  going  in  the  full  conviction 
that  my  visit  will  furnish  no  contribution  of  value 
either  to  literature  or  science:  I  have  neither  the 
knowledge,  nor  the  time,  nor  the  ambition  for  that. 
I  have  neither  the  plans  of  a  Humboldt  nor  of  a 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  133 

Kennan.  I  want  to  write  some  100  to  200  pages, 
and  so  do  something,  however  httle,  for  medical 
science,  which,  as  you  are  aware,  I  have  neglected 
shockingly.  Possibly  I  shall  not  succeed  in  writing 
anything,  but  still  the  expedition  does  not  lose  its 
charm  for  me:  reading,  looking  about  me,  and  listen- 
ing, I  shall  learn  a  great  deal  and  gain  experience. 
I  have  not  yet  travelled,  but  thanks  to  the  books 
which  I  have  been  compelled  to  read,  I  have  learned 
a  great  deal  which  anyone  ought  to  be  flogged  for 
not  knowing,  and  which  I  was  so  ignorant  as  not  to 
have  known  before.  Moreover,  I  imagine  the 
journey  will  be  six  months  of  incessant  hard  work, 
physical  and  mental,  and  that  is  essential  for  me,  for 
I  am  a  Little  Russian  and  have  already  begun  to  be 
lazy.  I  must  take  myself  in  hand.  My  expedition 
may  be  nonsense,  obstinacy,  a  craze,  but  think  a  mo- 
ment and  tell  me  what  I  am  losing  if  I  go.  Time? 
Money?  Shall  I  suffer  hardships?  My  time  is 
worth  nothing;  money  I  never  have  anyway;  as  for 
hardships,  I  shall  travel  with  horses,  twenty-five  to 
thirty  days,  not  more,  all  the  rest  of  the  time  I  shall 
be  sitting  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer  or  in  a  room,  and 
shall  be  continually  bombarding  you  with  letters. 

Suppose  the  expedition  gives  me  nothing,  yet 
surely  there  will  be  2  or  3  days  out  of  the  whole 
journey  which  I  shall  remember  all  my  life  with 
ecstasy  or  bitterness,  etc.,  etc.  ...  So  that's  how 
it  is,  sir.  All  that  is  unconvincing,  but  you  know 
you  write  just  as  unconvincingly.  For  instance,  you 
say  that  Sahalin  is  of  no  use  and  no  interest  to  any- 
one. Can  that  be  true?  Sahalin  can  be  useless  and 
uninteresting  only  to  a  society  which  does  not  exile 
thousands  of  people  to  it  and  does  not  spend  millions 


134  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

of  roubles  on  it.  Except  Australia  in  the  past  and 
Cayenne,  Sahalin  is  the  only  place  where  one  can 
study  colonization  by  convicts;  all  Europe  is  in- 
terested in  it,  and  is  it  no  use  to  us?  Not  more  than 
25  to  30  years  ago  our  Russians  exploring  Sahalin 
performed  amazing  feats  which  exalt  them  above  hu- 
manity, and  that's  no  use  to  us :  we  don't  know  what 
those  men  were,  and  simply  sit  within  four  walls  and 
complain  that  God  has  made  man  amiss.  Sahalin  is 
a  place  of  the  most  unbearable  sufferings  of  which 
man,  free  and  captive,  is  capable.  Those  who  work 
near  it  and  upon  it  have  solved  fearful,  responsible 
problems,  and  are  still  solving  them.  I  am  not  senti- 
mental, or  I  would  say  that  we  ought  to  go  to  places 
like  Sahalin  to  worship  as  the  Turks  go  to  Mecca, 
and  that  sailors  and  gaolers  ought  to  think  of  the 
prison  in  Sahalin  as  military  men  think  of  Sevastopol. 
From  the  books  I  have  read  and  am  reading,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  we  have  sent  millions  of  men  to  rot  in  prison, 
have  destroyed  them — casually,  without  thinking, 
barbarously;  we  have  driven  men  in  fetters  through 
the  cold  ten  thousand  versts,  have  infected  them  with 
syphilis,  have  depraved  them,  have  multiplied 
criminals,  and  the  blame  for  all  this  we  have  thrown 
upon  the  gaolers  and  red-nosed  superintendents. 
Now  all  educated  Europe  knows  that  it  is  not  the 
superintendents  that  are  to  blame,  but  all  of  us;  yet 
that  has  nothing  to  do  with  us,  it  is  not  interesting. 
The  vaunted  sixties  did  nothing  for  the  sick  and  for 
prisoners,  so  breaking  the  chief  commandment  of 
Christian  civilization.  In  our  day  something  is  be- 
ing done  for  the  sick,  nothing  for  prisoners;  prison 
manao-ement  is  entirelv  without  interest  for  our 
jurists.     No,  I  assure  you  that  Sahalin  is  of  use  and 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  135 

of  interest  to  us,  and  the  only  thing  to  regret  is  that 
I  am  going  there,  and  not  someone  else  who  knows 
more  about  it  and  would  be  more  able  to  rouse  public 
interest.  Nothing  much  will  come  of  my  going  there. 
****** 

There  have  been  disturbances  among  the  students 
on  a  grand  scale  here.  It  began  with  the  Petrovsky 
Academy,  where  the  authorities  forbade  the  students 
to  take  young  ladies  to  their  rooms,  suspecting  the 
ladies  of  politics  as  well  as  of  prostitution.  From 
the  Academy  it  spread  to  the  University,  where  now 
the  students,  surrounded  by  fully  armed  and  mounted 
Hectors  and  Achilleses  with  lances,  make  the  follow- 
ing demands: 

1.  Complete  autonomy  for  the  universities. 

2.  Complete  freedom  of  teaching. 

3.  Free  right  of  entrance  to  the  university  without 
distinction  of  religious  denomination,  nationality, 
sex,  and  social  position. 

4.  Right  of  entrance  to  the  university  for  the  Jews 
without  restriction,  and  equal  rights  for  them  with 
the  other  students. 

5.  Freedom  of  meeting  and  recognition  of  the 
students'  associations. 

6.  The  establishment  of  a  university  and  students' 
tribunal. 

7.  The  abolition  of  the  police  duties  of  the  in- 
spectors. 

8.  Lowering  of  the  fees  for  instruction. 

This  I  copied  from  a  manifesto,  with  some  abbre- 
viations. 


136  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

To  I.  L.  Shtcheglov. 

Moscow, 
March  22,  1890. 

My  greetings,  dear  Jean!  Thanks  for  your  long 
letter  and  for  the  good  will  of  which  it  is  full  from 
beginning  to  end.  I  shall  be  delighted  to  read  your 
military  story.  Will  it  come  out  in  the  Easter  num- 
ber? It  is  a  long  time  since  I  read  anything  of  yours 
or  my  own.  You  say  that  you  want  to  give  me  a 
harsh  scolding  "especially  on  the  score  of  morality 
and  art,"  you  speak  vaguely  of  my  crimes  as  deserv- 
ing  friendly  censure,  and  threaten  me  with  "an  in- 
fluential newspaper  criticism."  If  you  scratch  out 
the  word  "art,"  the  whole  phrase  in  quotation  marks 
becomes  clearer,  but  gains  a  significance  which,  to  tell 
the  truth,  perplexes  me  not  a  little.  Jean,  what  is  it? 
How  is  one  to  understand  it?  Can  I  really  be  differ- 
ent in  my  ideas  of  morality  from  people  like  you,  and 
so  much  so  as  to  deserve  censure  and  even  an  influen- 
tial article?  I  cannot  take  it  that  you  mean  some 
subtle  higher  morality,  as  there  are  no  lower,  higher, 
or  medium  moralities,  but  only  one  which  Jesus 
Christ  gave  us,  and  which  now  prevents  you  and  me 
and  Barantsevitch  from  stealing,  insulting,  lying,  and 
so  on.  If  I  can  trust  the  ease  of  my  conscience,  I 
have  never  by  word  or  deed,  in  thought,  or  in  my 
stories,  or  in  my  farces,  coveted  my  neighbour's  wife, 
nor  his  man,  nor  his  ox,  nor  any  of  his  cattle,  I  have 
not  stolen,  nor  been  a  hypocrite,  I  have  not  flattered 
the  great  nor  sought  their  favour,  I  have  not  black- 
mailed, nor  lived  at  other  people's  expense.  It  is 
true  I  have  waxed  wanton  and  slothful,  have  laughed 
heedlessly,  have  eaten  too  much  and  drunk  too  much 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  137 

and  been  profligate.  But  all  that  is  a  personal  mat- 
ter, and  all  that  does  not  deprive  me  of  the  right  to 
think  that,  as  far  as  morals  are  concerned,  I  am  noth- 
ing out  of  the  ordinary,  one  way  or  the  other.  Noth- 
ing heroic  and  nothing  scoundrelly — I  am  just  like 
everyone  else;  I  have  many  sins,  but  I  am  quits  with 
morality,  as  I  pay  for  those  sins  with  interest  in  the 
discomforts  they  bring  with  them.  If  you  want  to 
abuse  me  cruelly  because  I  am  not  a  hero,  you'd  bet- 
ter throw  your  cruelty  out  of  the  window,  and  instead 
of  abuse,  let  me  hear  your  charming  tragic  laugh — 
that's  better. 

But  of  the  word  "art"  I  am  terrified,  as  merchants' 
wives  are  terrified  of  "brimstone."  When  people 
talk  to  me  of  what  is  artistic  and  inartistic,  of  what  is 
dramatic  and  not  dramatic,  of  tendency,  realism,  and 
so  on,  I  am  bewildered,  hesitatingly  assent,  and 
answer  with  banal  half-truths  not  worth  a  brass  farth- 
ing. I  divide  all  works  into  two  classes :  those  I  like 
and  those  I  don't.  I  have  no  other  criterion,  and  if 
you  ask  me  why  I  like  Shakespeare  and  don't  like 
Zlatovratsky,  I  don't  venture  to  answer.  Perhaps  in 
time  and  as  I  grow  wiser  I  may  work  out  some 
criterion,  but  meanwhile  all  conversations  about  what 
is  "artistic"  only  weary  me,  and  seem  to  me 
like  a  continuation  of  the  scholastic  disputations 
with  which  people  wearied  themselves  in  the  middle 
ages. 

If  criticism,  on  the  authority  of  which  you  rely, 
knows  what  you  and  I  don't  know,  why  has  it  up  till 
now  not  spoken  ?  why  does  it  not  reveal  the  truth  and 
the  immutable  laws?  If  it  knew,  believe  me,  it 
would  long  ago  have  shown  us  the  true  path  and  we 
should  have  known  what  to  do,  and  Fofanov  would 


138  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

not  have  been  in  a  madhouse,  Garshin  would  have 
been  ahve  to-day,  Barantsevitch  would  not  have  been 
so  depressed  and  we  should  not  be  so  dull  and  ill  at 
ease  as  we  are,  and  you  would  not  feel  drawn  to  the 
theatre  and  I  to  Sahalin.  But  criticism  maintains  a 
dignified  silence  or  gets  out  of  it  with  idle  trashy 
babble.  If  it  seems  to  you  authoritative  it  is  because 
it  is  stupid,  conceited,  impudent,  and  clamorous; 
because  it  is  an  empty  barrel  one  cannot  help  hearing. 
But  let  us  have  done  with  that  and  sing  something 
out  of  a  different  opera.  Please  don't  build  any 
literary  hopes  on  my  Sahalin  trip.  I  am  not  going 
for  the  sake  of  impressions  or  observations,  but 
simply  for  the  sake  of  living  for  six  months  differently 
from  how  I  have  lived  hitherto.  Don't  rely  on  me, 
old  man ;  if  I  am  successful  and  clever  enough  to  do 
something,  so  much  the  better;  if  not,  don't  blame  me. 
I  am  going  after  Easter.  I  will  send  you  in  due  time 
my  Sahalin  address  and  minute  instructions.   .   .   . 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 


Moscow, 
March  22,  1890. 


.  .  .  Yesterday  a  young  lady  told  me  that  Profes- 
sor Storozhenko  had  related  to  her  the  following 
anecdote.  The  Sovereign  liked  the  Kreutzer  Sonata. 
Pobyedonostsev,  Lubimov,  and  the  other  cherubim 
and  seraphim,  hastened  to  justify  their  attitude  to 
Tolstoy  by  showing  his  Majesty  "Nikolay  Palkin." 
After  reading  it,  his  Majesty  was  so  furious  that  he 
ordered  measures  to  be  taken.  Prince  Dolgorukov 
was  informed.  And  so  one  fine  day  an  adjutant 
from  Dolgorukov  comes  to  Tolstoy  and  invites  him  to 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  139 

go  at  once  to  the  prince.  The  latter  replies:  "Tell 
the  prince  that  I  only  visit  the  houses  of  my  acquain- 
tances." The  adjutant,  overcome  with  confusion, 
rides  away,  and  next  day  brings  Tolstoy  the  official 
notice  demanding  from  him  an  explanation  in  regard 
to  his  "Nikolay  Palkin."  Tolstoy  reads  the  docu- 
ment and  says : 

"Tell  his  excellency  that  I  have  not  for  a  long  time 
past  written  anything  for  publication;  I  write  only 
for  my  friends,  and  if  my  friends  spread  my  writings 
abroad,  they  are  responsible  and  not  I.  Tell  him 
that!" 

"But  I  can't  tell  him  that,"  cried  the  adjutant  in 
horror,  "the  prince  will  not  believe  me!" 

"The  prince  will  not  believe  his  subordinates? 
That's  bad." 

Two  days  later  the  adjutant  comes  again  with  a 
fresh  document,  and  learns  that  Tolstoy  has  gone 
away  to  Yasnaya  Polyana.  That  is  the  end  of  the 
anecdote. 

Now  about  the  new  movements.  They  flog  in  our 
police  stations;  a  rate  has  been  fixed;  from  a 
peasant  they  take  ten  kopecks  for  a  beating,  from  a 
workman  twenty — that's  for  the  rods  and  the  trouble. 
Peasant  women  are  flogged  too.  Not  long  ago,  in 
their  enthusiasm  for  beating  in  a  police  station,  they 
thrashed  a  couple  of  budding  lawyers,  an  incident 
upon  which  Russkiya  Vyedomosti  has  a  vague  para- 
graph to-day;  an  investigation  has  begun. 

Another  sign  of  the  times:  the  cabmen  approve 
of  the  students'  disturbances. 

"They  are  making  a  riot  for  the  poor  to  be  taken 
in  to  study,"  they  explain,  "learning  is  not  only  for 
the  rich."     It  is  said  that  when  a  crowd  of  students 


140  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

were  being  taken  by  night  to  the  prison  the  populace 
fell  upon  the  gendarmes  to  rescue  the  students  from 
them.  The  populace  is  said  to  have  shouted:  "You 
have  set  up  flogging  for  us,  but  they  stand  up  for  us." 

March  29. 

.  .  .  Fatigue  is  a  relative  matter.  You  say  you 
used  to  work  twenty  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  and 
were  not  exhausted.  But  you  know  one  may  be  ex- 
hausted lying  all  day  long  on  the  sofa.  You  used  to 
write  for  twenty  hours,  but  you  know  you  were  in  per- 
fect health  all  that  time,  you  were  stimulated  by  suc- 
cess, defiance,  a  sense  of  your  talent ;  you  liked  your 
work,  or  you  wouldn't  have  written.  Your  heir-ap- 
parent sits  up  late,  not  because  he  has  a  talent  for 
journalism  or  a  love  for  his  work,  but  simply  because 
his  father  is  an  editor  of  a  newspaper.  The  difference 
is  vast.  He  ought  to  have  been  a  doctor  or  a  lawyer, 
to  have  had  an  income  of  two  thousand  roubles  a  year, 
and  published  his  articles  not  in  Novoye  Vremya  and 
not  in  the  spirit  of  Novoye  Vremya.  Only  those 
young  people  can  be  accepted  as  healthy  who  refuse  to 
be  reconciled  with  the  old  order  and  foolishly  or 
wisely  struggle  against  it — such  is  the  will  of  nature 
and  it  is  the  foundation  of  progress,  while  your  son  be- 
gan by  absorbing  the  old  order.  In  our  most  intimate 
talks  he  has  never  once  abused  Tatistchev  or  Burenin, 
and  that's  a  bad  sign.  You  are  a  hundred  times  as 
liberal  as  he  is,  and  it  ought  to  be  the  other  way.  He 
utters  a  listless  and  indolent  protest,  he  soon  drops  his 
voice  and  soon  agrees,  and  altogether  one  has  the  im- 
pression that  he  has  no  interest  whatever  in  the  con- 
test; that  is,  he  looks  on  at  the  cock-fight  like  a  spec- 
tator and  has  no  cock  of  his  own.     And  one  ought  to 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  '  141 

have  one's  own  cock,  else  life  is  without  interest. 
The  unfortunate  thing,  too,  is  that  he  is  intelligent, 
and  great  intelHgence  with  little  interest  in  life  is  like 
a  great  machine  which  produces  nothing,  yet  requires 
a  great  deal  of  fuel  and  exhausts  the  owner.   .   .   . 

April  1. 

You  abuse  me  for  objectivity,  calling  it  indifference 
to  good  and  evil,  lack  of  ideals  and  ideas,  and  so  on. 
You  would  have  me,  when  I  describe  horse-stealers, 
say:  "Stealing  horses  is  an  evil."  But  that  has  been 
known  for  ages  without  my  saying  so.  Let  the  jury 
judge  them,  it's  my  job  simply  to  show  what  sort  of 
people  they  are.  I  write:  you  are  dealing  with 
horse-stealers,  so  let  me  tell  you  that  they  are  not 
beggars  but  well-fed  people,  that  they  are  people  of  a 
special  cult,  and  that  horse-stealing  is  not  simply 
theft  but  a  passion.  Of  course  it  would  be  pleasant 
to  combine  art  with  a  sermon,  but  for  me  personally 
it  is  extremely  difficult  and  almost  impossible,  owing 
to  the  conditions  of  technique.  You  see,  to  depict 
horse-stealers  in  seven  hundred  lines  I  must  all  the 
time  speak  and  think  in  their  tone  and  feel  in  their 
spirit,  otherwise,  if  I  introduce  subjectivity,  the  image 
becomes  blurred  and  the  story  will  not  be  as  compact 
as  all  short  stories  ought  to  be.  When  I  write  I 
reckon  entirely  Upon  the  reader  to  add  for  himself  the 
subjective  elements  that  are  lacking  in  the  story. 

April  11. 

Madame  N.  who  used  at  one  time  to  live  in  your 
family  is  here  now.  She  married  the  artist  N.,  a  nice 
but  tedious  man  who  wants  at  all  costs  to  travel  with 
me  to  Sahalin  to  sketch.     To  refuse  him  my  com- 


142  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

pany  I  haven't  the  courage,  but  to  travel  with  him 
would  be  simple  misery.  He  is  going  to  Petersburg 
in  a  day  or  two  to  sell  his  pictures,  and  at  his  wife's 
request  will  call  on  you  to  ask  your  advice.  With  a 
view  to  this  his  wife  came  to  ask  me  for  a  letter  of 
introduction  to  you.  Be  my  benefactor,  tell  N.  that 
I  am  a  drunkard,  a  swindler,  a  nihilist,  a  rowdy 
character,  and  that  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  travel 
with  me,  and  that  a  journey  in  my  company  will  do 
nothing  but  upset  him.  Tell  him  he  will  be  wasting 
his  time.  Of  course  it  would  be  very  nice  to  have 
my  book  illustrated,  but  when  I  learned  that  N.  was 
hoping  to  get  not  less  than  a  thousand  roubles  for  it, 
I  lost  all  appetite  for  illustrations.  My  dear  fellow, 
advise  him  against  it ! ! !  Why  it  is  your  advice  he 
wants,  the  devil  only  knows. 

April  15. 

And  so,  my  dear  friend,  I  am  setting  off  on  Wednes- 
day or  Thursday  at  latest.  Good-bye  till  Decem- 
ber. Good  luck  in  my  absence.  I  received  the 
money,  thank  you  very  much,  though  fifteen  hundred 
roubles  is  a  great  deal;  I  don't  know  where  to  put  it. 
...  I  feel  as  though  I  were  preparing  for  the  bat- 
tlefield, though  I  see  no  dangers  before  me  but  tooth- 
ache, which  I  am  sure  to  have  on  the  journey.  As  I 
am  provided  with  nothing  in  the  way  of  papers  but 
a  passport,  I  may  have  unpleasant  encounters  with 
the  authorities,  but  that  is  a  passing  trouble.  If  they 
refuse  to  show  me  something,  I  shall  simply  write  in 
my  book  that  they  wouldn't  show  it  me,  and  that's 
all,  and  I  won't  worry.  In  case  I  am  drowned  or 
anything  of  that  sort,  you  might  keep  it  in  mind  that 
all  I  have  or  may  have  in  the  future  belongs  to  my 
sister;   she  will  pay  my  debts. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  143 

I  am  taking  my  mother  with  me  and  putting  her 
down  at  the  Troitsky  Monastery;  I  am  taking  my 
sister  too,  and  leaving  her  at  Kostroma.  I  am  tell- 
ing them  I  shall  be  back  in  September. 

I  shall  go  over  the  university  in  Tomsk.  As  the 
only  faculty  there  is  medicine  I  shall  not  show  my- 
self an  ignoramus. 

I  have  bought  myself  a  fur  coat,  an  officer's  water- 
proof leather  coat,  big  boots,  and  a  big  knife  for  cut- 
ting sausage  and  hunting  tigers.  I  am  equipped 
from  head  to  foot. 

To  His  Sister. 

Steamer  "Alexandr  Nevsky  23," 

April,  1890,  early  in  the  morning. 

My  dear  Tunguses! 

Did  you  have  rain  when  Ivan  was  coming  back 
from  the  monastery?  In  Yaroslavl  there  was  such  a 
downpour  that  I  had  to  swathe  myself  in  my  leather 
chiton.  My  first  impression  of  the  Volga  was 
poisoned  by  the  rain,  by  the  tear-stained  windows  of 
the  cabin,  and  the  wet  nose  of  G.,  who  came  to  meet 
me  at  the  station.  In  the  rain  Yaroslavl  looks  like 
Zvenigorod,  and  its  churches  remind  me  of  Perer- 
vinsky  Monastery;  there  are  lots  of  illiterate  sign- 
boards, it's  muddy,  jackdaws  with  big  heads  strut 
about  the  pavement. 

In  the  steamer  I  made  it  my  first  duty  to  indulge 
my  talent — that  is,  to  sleep.  When  I  woke  I  beheld 
the  sun.  The  Volga  is  not  bad;  water  meadows, 
monasteries  bathed  in  sunshine,  white  churches;  the 
wade  expanse  is  marvellous,  wherever  one  looks  it 
would  be  a  nice  place  to  sit  down  and  begin  fishing. 


144  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Class  ladies*  wander  about  on  the  banks,  nipping  at 
the  green  grass.     The  shepherd's  horn  can  be  heard 
now    and    then.     White    gulls,    looking    Hke    the 
younger  Drishka,  hover  over  the  water. 
The  steamer  is  not  up  to  much.   .   .   . 

*****  -H- 

Kundasova  is  travelling  with  me.  Where  she  is 
going  and  with  what  object  I  don't  know.  When  I 
question  her  about  it,  she  launches  off  into  extremely 
misty  allusions  about  someone  who  has  appointed  a 
tryst  with  her  in  a  ravine  near  Kineshma,  then  goes 
off  into  a  wild  giggle  and  begins  stamping  her  feet 
or  prodding  with  her  elbow  whatever  comes  first. 
We  have  passed  both  Kineshma  and  the  ravine,  but 
she  still  goes  on  in  the  steamer,  at  which  of  course  I 
am  very  much  pleased ;  by  the  way,  yesterday  for  the 
first  time  in  my  life  I  saw  her  eating.  She  eats  no 
less  than  other  people,  but  she  eats  mechanically,  as 
though  she  were  munching  oats. 

Kostroma  is  a  nice  town.  I  saw  the  stretch  of 
river  on  which  the  languid  Levitan  used  to  live.  I 
saw  Kineshma,  where  I  walked  along  the  boulevard 
and  watched  the  local  beaus.  Here  I  went  into  the 
chemist's  shop  to  buy  some  Bertholet  salts  for  my 
tongue,  which  was  like  leather  after  the  medicine  I 
had  taken.  The  chemist,  on  seeing  Olga  Petrovna, 
was  overcome  with  delight  and  confusion;  she  was 
the  same.  They  were  evidently  old  acquaintances, 
and  judging  from  the  conversation  between  them 
they  had  walked  more  than  once  about  the  ravines 
near  Kineshma. 

*  I.e.,  School  chaperons,  whose  duty  it  is  to  sit  in  the  class- 
room while  the  girls  are  receiving  instruction  from  a  master. — 
Translator's  Note. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  145 

.  .  .  It's  rather  cold  and  rather  dull,  but  interest- 
ing on  the  whole.  The  steamer  whistles  every 
minute;  its  whistle  is  midway  between  the  bray  of 
an  ass  and  an  y^olian  harp.  In  five  or  six  hours  we 
shall  be  in  Nizhni.  The  sun  is  rising.  I  slept  last 
night  artistically.  My  money  is  safe ;  that  is  because 
I  am  constantly  pressing  my  hands  on  my  stomach. 

Very  beautiful  are  the  steam-tugs,  dragging  after 
them  four  or  five  barges  each;  they  look  like  some 
fine  young  intellectual  trying  to  run  away  while  a 
plebeian  wife,  mother-in-law,  sister-in-law,  and  wife's 
grandmother  hold  on  to  his  coat-tails. 

*  *  -^  -Sf  *  * 

The  sun  is  hiding  behind  the  clouds,  the  sky  is 
overcast,  and  the  broad  Volga  looks  gloomy. 
Levitan  ought  not  to  live  on  the  Volga.  It  lays  a 
weight  of  gloom  on  the  soul.  Though  it  would  not 
be  bad  to  have  an  estate  on  its  banks. 

•3f  *  *  *  -Jf  * 

If  the  waiter  would  wake  I  should  ask  him  for 
some  coffee;  as  it  is,  I  have  to  drink  water  without 
any  relish  for  it.  My  greetings  to  Maryushka  and 
Olga.* 

Well,  keep  well  and  take  care  of  yourselves.  I 
will  write  regularly. 

Your  bored  Volga-travelling 

Homo  Sachaliensis, 

A.  Chekhov. 

*  The  Chekhovs'  servants. 


146  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

From  the  Steamer, 

Evening,  April  24,  1890. 

My  dear  Tunguses! 

I  am  floating  on  the  Kama,  but  I  can't  fix  the 
exact  locahty;  I  beheve  we  are  near  Tchistopol.  I 
cannot  extol  the  beauties  of  the  scenery  either,  as  it 
is  helHshly  cold;  the  birches  are  not  yet  out,  there 
are  still  patches  of  snow  here  and  there,  bits  of  ice 
float  by — in  short,  the  picturesque  has  gone  to  the 
dogs.  I  sit  in  the  cabin,  where  people  of  all  sorts 
and  conditions  sit  at  the  table,  and  listen  to  the  con- 
versation, wondering  whether  it  is  not  time  for  me 
to  have  tea.  If  I  had  my  way  I  should  do  nothing 
all  day  but  eat;  as  I  haven't  the  money  to  be  eating 
all  day  long  I  sleep  and  sleep.  I  don't  go  up  on  deck, 
it's  cold.  By  night  it  rains  and  by  day  there  is  an  un- 
pleasant wind. 

Oh,  the  caviare!  I  eat  it  and  eat  and  never  have 
enough. 

...  It  is  a  pity  I  did  not  think  to  get  myself  a 
little  bag  for  tea  and  sugar.  I  have  to  order  it  a 
glass  at  a  time,  which  is  tiresome  and  expensive.  I 
meant  to  buy  some  tea  and  sugar  to-day  at  Kazan, 
but  I  over-slept  myself. 

Rejoice,  0  mother!  I  believe  I  stop  twenty-four 
hours  at  Ekaterinburg,  and  shall  see  the  rela- 
tions. Perhaps  their  hearts  may  be  softened 
and  they  will  give  me  three  roubles  and  an  ounce  of 
tea. 

From  the  conversation  I  am  listening  to  at  this 
moment,  I  gather  that  the  members  of  a  judicial 
tribunal  are  travelling  with  me.  They  are  not  gifted 
persons.     Tlie  merchants,  who  put  in  their  word 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  147 

from  time  to  time  seem,  however,  intelligent.     One 
comes  across  fearfully  rich  people. 

Sterlets  are  cheaper  than  mushrooms;  you  soon 
get  sick  of  them.  What  more  is  there  for  me  to 
write  about?  There  is  nothing.  .  .  .  There  is  a 
General,  though,  and  a  lean  fair  man.  The  former 
keeps  dashing  from  his  cabin  to  the  deck  and  back 
again,  and  sending  his  photograph  off  somewhere; 
the  latter  is  got  up  to  look  like  Nadson,  and  tries 
thereby  to  give  one  to  know  that  he  is  a  writer.  To- 
day he  was  mendaciously  telling  a  lady  that  he  had 
a  book  published  by  Suvorin;  I,  of  course,  put  on 
an  expression  of  awe. 

My  money  is  all  safe,  except  what  I  have 
eaten.  They  won't  feed  me  for  nothing,  the  scoun- 
drels. 

I  am  neither  gay  nor  bored,  but  there  is  a  sort  of 
numbness  in  my  soul.  I  like  to  sit  without  moving 
or  speaking.  To-day,  for  instance,  I  have  scarcely 
uttered  five  words.  That's  not  true,  though:  I 
talked  to  a  priest  on  deck. 

We  begin  to  come  across  natives ;  there  are  lots  of 
Tatars:  they  are  a  respectable  and  well-behaved  peo- 
ple. 

I  beg  Father  and  Mother  not  to  worry,  and  not  to 
imagine  dangers  which  do  not  exist. 

^  *  *  *  *  * 

Excuse  me  for  writing  about  nothing  but  food.  If 
I  did  not  write  about  food  I  should  have  to  write 
about  cold,  for  I  have  no  other  subjects. 

****** 


148  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

April  29,  1890. 

My  dear  Tunguses! 

The  Kama  is  a  very  dull  river.  To  realise 
its  beauties  one  would  have  to  be  a  native  sitting 
motionless  on  a  barge  beside  a  barrel  of  naphtha, 
or  a  sack  of  dried  fish,  continually  taking  a  pull  at  the 
bottle.  The  river  banks  are  bare,  the  trees  are  bare, 
the  earth  is  a  dull  brown,  there  are  patches  of  snow, 
and  there  is  such  a  wind  that  the  devil  himself  could 
not  blow  as  keenly  and  hatefully.  When  a  cold 
wind  blows  and  ruffles  up  the  water,  which  now  after 
the  floods  is  the  colour  of  coffee  slops,  one  feels  cold 
and  bored  and  miserable;  the  strains  of  a  concertina 
on  the  bank  sound  dejected,  figures  in  tattered  sheep- 
skins standing  motionless  on  the  barges  that  meet 
us  look  as  though  they  were  petrified  by  some  unend- 
ing grief.  The  towns  on  the  Kama  are  grey;  one 
would  think  the  inhabitants  were  employed  in  the 
manufacture  of  clouds,  boredom,  soaking  fences  and 
mud  in  the  streets,  as  their  sole  occupation.  The 
stopping-places  are  thronged  with  inhabitants  of  the 
educated  class,  for  whom  the  arrival  of  a  steamer  is 
an  event.   .   .   . 

...  To  judge  from  appearances  not  one  of  them 
earns  more  than  thirty-five  roubles,  and  all  of  them 
are  ailing  in  some  way. 

I  have  told  you  already  there  are  some  legal  gentle- 
men in  the  steamer:  the  president  of  the  court,  one 
of  the  judges,  and  the  prosecutor.  The  president  is 
a  hale  and  hearty  old  German  who  has  embraced 
Orthodoxy,  is  pious,  a  homoeopath,  and  evidently  a 
devotee  of  the  sex.  Tlie  judge  is  an  old  man  such  as 
dear  Nikolay  used  to  draw;  he  walks  bent  double. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  149 

coughs,  and  is  fond  of  facetious  subjects.  The  prose- 
cutor is  a  man  of  forty-three,  dissatisfied  with  Ufe,  a 
liberal,  a  sceptic,  and  a  very  good-natured  fellow. 
All  the  journey  these  gentlemen  have  been  occupied 
in  eating,  settling  mighty  questions  and  eating,  read- 
ing and  eating.  There  is  a  library  on  the  steamer, 
and  I  saw  the  prosecutor  reading  my  "In  the  Twi- 
light." They  began  talking  about  me.  Mamin- 
Sibiryak,  who  has  described  the  Urals,  is  the  author 
most  liked  in  these  parts.  He  is  more  talked  of  than 
Tolstoy. 

I  have  been  two  and  a  half  years  sailing  to  Perm, 
so  it  seems  to  me.  We  reached  there  at  two  o'clock 
in  the  night.  The  train  went  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
evening.  I  had  to  wait.  It  rained.  Rain,  cold, 
mud  .  .  .  brrr!  The  Uralsky  line  is  a  good  one. 
.  .  .  That  is  due  to  the  abundance  of  business-like 
people  here,  factories,  mines,  and  so  on,  for  whom 
time  is  precious. 

Waking  yesterday  morning  and  looking  out  of  the 
carriage  window  I  felt  an  aversion  for  nature:  the 
earth  was  white,  trees  covered  with  hoar-frost,  and  a 
regular  blizzard  pursuing  the  train.  Now  isn't  it 
revolting?  Isn't  it  disgusting?  ...  I  have  no 
goloshes,  I  pulled  on  my  big  boots,  and  on  my  way  to 
the  refreshment-room  for  coffee  I  made  the  whole 
Ural  region  smell  of  tar.  And  when  we  got  to 
Ekaterinburg  there  was  rain,  snow,  and  hail.  I  put 
on  my  leather  coat.  The  cabs  are  something  incon- 
ceivable, wretched,  dirty,  drenched,  without  springs, 
the  horse's  four  legs  straddling,  huge  hoofs,  gaunt 

spines the     droshkies     here     are     a 

clumsy  parody  of  our  britchkas.     A  tattered  top  is 
put  on  to  a  britchka,  that  is  all.     And  the  more 


150  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

exactly  I  describe  the  cabman  here  and  his  vehicle, 
the  more  it  will  seem  like  a  caricature.  They  drive 
not  on  the  middle  of  the  road  where  it  is  jolting,  but 
near  the  gutter  where  it  is  muddy  and  soft.  All  the 
cabmen  are  like  Dobrolyubov. 

In  Russia  all  the  towns  are  alike.  Ekaterinburg 
is  exactly  the  same  as  Perm  or  Tula.  The  note  of 
the  bells  is  magnificent,  velvety.  I  stopped  at  the 
American  Hotel  (not  at  all  bad),  and  at  once  sent 
word  of  my  arrival  to  A.  M.  S.,  telling  him  I  meant  to 
stay  in  my  hotel  room  for  two  days. 

The  people  here  inspire  the  newcomer  with  a  feel- 
ing akin  to  horror.  They  are  big-browed,  big-jawed, 
broad-shouldered  fellows  with  huge  fists  and  tiny 
eyes.  They  are  born  in  the  local  iron  foundries,  and 
at  their  birth  a  mechanic  officiates  instead  of  an  ac- 
coucheur. A  specimen  comes  into  your  room  with 
a  samovar  or  a  bottle  of  water,  and  you  expect  him 
every  minute  to  murder  you.  I  stand  aside.  This 
morning  just  such  a  one  came  in,  big-browed,  big- 
jawed,  huge,  towering  up  to  the  ceiling,  seven  feet 
across  the  shoulders  and  wearing  a  fur  coat  too. 

Well,  I  thought,  this  one  will  certainly  murder  me. 
It  appeared  that  this  was  our  relation  A.  M.  S.  We 
began  to  talk.  He  is  a  member  of  the  local  Zemstvo 
and  manager  of  his  cousin's  mill,  which  is  lighted  by 
electric  light;  he  is  editor  of  the  Ekaterinburg  Week 
which  is  under  the  censorship  of  the  police-master 
Baron  Taube,  is  married  and  has  two  children,  is 
growing  rich  and  getting  fat  and  elderly,  and  lives 
in  a  "substantial  way."  He  says  he  has  no  time  to 
be  bored.  He  advised  me  to  visit  the  museum,  the 
factories,  and  the  mines;  I  thanked  him  for  his  ad- 
vice.    He  invited  me  to  tea  to-morrow  evening;   I 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  151 

invited  him  to  dine  with  me.  He  did  not  invite  me 
to  dinner,  and  altogether  did  not  press  me  very  much 
to  visit  him.  From  this  mother  may  conclude  that 
the  relations'  heart  is  not  softened.  .  .  .  Relations 
are  a  race  in  which  I  take  no  interest. 

There  is  snow  in  the  street,  and  I  have  purposely 
let  down  the  blind  over  the  windows  so  as  not  to  see 
the  Asiatic  sight.  I  am  sitting  here  waiting  for  an 
answer  from  Tyumen  to  my  telegram.  I  tele- 
graphed: "Tyumen.  Kurbatov  steamer  line. 
Reply  paid.  Inform  me  when  the  passenger  steamer 
starts  Tomsk."  It  depends  on  the  answer  whether 
I  go  by  steamer  or  gallop  fifteen  hundred  versts  in 
the  slush  of  the  thaw. 

All  night  long  they  beat  on  sheets  of  iron  at  every 
corner  here.  You  need  a  head  of  iron  not  to  go 
crazy  from  the  incessant  clanging.  To-day  I  tried 
to  make  myself  coffee.  The  result  was  a  horrid  mess. 
I  just  drank  it  with  a  shrug.  I  looked  at  five  sheets, 
handled  them,  and  did  not  take  one.  I  am  going 
to-day  to  buy  rubber  overshoes. 

****** 

Shall  I  find  a  letter  from  you  at  Irkutsk? 
Ask  Lika  not  to  leave  such  big  margins  in  her 
letters. 

Your  Homo  Sachaliensis, 

A.  Chekhov. 


152  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

To  Madame  Kiselyov. 

The  Bank  of  the  Irtysh, 
May  7,  1890. 

My  greetings,  honoured  Marya  Vladimirovna !  I 
meant  to  write  you  a  farewell  letter  from  Moscow, 
but  I  had  not  time;  I  write  to  you  now  sitting  in  a 
hut  on  the  bank  of  the  Irtysh. 

It  is  night.  This  is  how  I  have  come  to  be  here. 
I  am  driving  across  the  plain  of  Siberia.  I  have 
already  driven  715  versts;  I  have  been  transformed 
from  head  to  foot  into  a  great  martyr.  This  morning 
a  keen  cold  wind  began  blowing,  and  it  began  driz- 
zling with  the  most  detestable  rain.  I  must  observe 
that  there  is  no  spring  yet  in  Siberia.  The  earth  is 
brown,  the  trees  are  bare,  and  there  are  white  patches 
of  snow  wherever  one  looks ;  I  wear  my  fur  coat  and 
felt  overboots  day  and  night.  .  .  .  Well,  the 
wind  has  been  blowing  since  early  morning.  .  .  . 
Heavy  leaden  clouds,  dull  brown  earth,  mud,  rain, 
wind.  .  .  .  Brrr!  I  drive  on  and  on.  ...  I 
drive  on  endlessly,  and  the  weather  does  not  improve. 
Towards  evening  I  am  told  at  the  station  I  can't  go 
on  further,  as  everything  is  under  water,  the  bridges 
have  been  carried  away,  and  so  on.  Knowing  how 
fond  these  drivers  are  of  frightening  one  with  the 
elements  so  as  to  keep  the  traveller  for  the  night  (it 
is  to  their  interest),  I  did  not  believe  them,  and 
ordered  them  to  harness  the  three  horses;  and  now 
— alas  for  me! — I  had  not  driven  more  than  five 
versts  when  I  saw  the  land  on  the  bank  of  the  Irtysh 
all  covered  with  great  lakes,  the  road  disappeared 
under  water,  and  the  bridges  on  the  road  really  had 
been  swept  away  or  had  decayed.     I  was  prevented 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  153 

from  turning  back  partly  by  obstinacy  and  partly  by 
the  desire  to  get  out  of  these  dreary  parts  as  quickly 
as  possible.  We  began  driving  through  the  lakes. 
.  .  .  My  God,  I  have  never  experienced  anything 
like  it  in  my  life!  The  cutting  wind,  the  cold,  the 
loathsome  rain,  and  one  had  to  get  out  of  the  chaise 
(not  a  covered  one),  if  you  please,  and  hold  the 
horses:  at  each  little  bridge  one  could  only  lead  the 
horses  over  one  at  a  time.  .  .  .  What  had  I  come 
to?  Where  was  I?  All  around,  desert,  dreariness; 
the  bare  sullen  bank  of  the  Irtysh  in  sight.  .  .  . 
We  drive  into  the  very  biggest  lake.  Now  I  should 
be  glad  to  turn  back,  but  it  is  not  easy.  .  .  .  We 
drive  on  a  long  strip  of  land  .  .  .  the  strip  comes  to 
an  end — we  go  splash !  Again  a  strip  of  land,  again 
a  splash.  .  .  .  My  hands  were  numb,  and  the  wild 
ducks  seemed  jeering  at  us  and  floated  in  huge  flocks 
over  our  heads.  ...  It  got  dark.  The  driver 
said  nothing — he  was  bewildered.  But  at  last  we 
reached  the  last  strip  that  separated  the  Irtysh  from 
the  lake.  .  .  .  The  sloping  bank  of  the  Irtysh  was 
nearly  three  feet  above  the  level ;  it  was  of  clay,  bare, 
hollowed  out,  and  looked  slippery.  The  water  was 
muddy.  .  .  .  White  waves  splashed  on  the  clay, 
but  the  Irtysh  itself  made  no  roar  or  din,  but  gave 
forth  a  strange  sound  as  though  someone  were  nailing 
up  a  coffin  under  the  water.  .  .  .  The  further  bank 
was  a  flat,  disconsolate  plain.  .  .  .  You  often 
dream  of  the  Bozharovsky  pool ;  in  the  same  way  now 
I  shall  dream  of  the  Irtysh.   .   .   . 

But  behold  a  ferry.  We  must  be  ferried  across  to 
the  other  side.  A  peasant  shrinking  from  the  rain 
comes  out  of  a  hut,  and  tells  us  that  the  ferry  cannot 
cross  now  as  it  is  too  windy.   .   .  .      (The  ferries  are 


154  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

worked  by  oars).  He  advises  us  to  wait  for  calm 
weather.   .   .   . 

And  so  I  am  sitting  at  night  in  a  hut  on  a  lake  at 
the  very  edge  of  the  Irtysh.  I  feel  a  penetrating 
dampness  to  the  very  marrow  of  my  bones,  and  a 
loneliness  in  my  soul;  I  hear  my  Irtysh  banging  on 
the  coffins  and  the  wind  howling,  and  wonder  where 
I  am,  why  I  am  here. 

In  the  next  room  the  peasants  who  work  the  ferry 
and  my  driver  are  asleep.  They  are  good-natured 
people.  But  if  they  were  bad  people  they  could  per- 
fectly well  rob  me  and  drown  me  in  the  Irtysh.  The 
hut  is  the  only  one  on  the  river  bank;  there  would 
be  no  witnesses. 

The  road  to  Tomsk  is  absolutely  free  from  danger 
as  far  as  brigands  are  concerned.  It  isn't  the  fashion 
even  to  talk  of  robbery.  There  is  no  stealing  even 
from  travellers.  When  you  go  into  a  hut  you  can 
leave  your  things  outside  and  they  will  all  be  safe. 

But  they  very  nearly  did  kill  me  all  the  same. 
Imagine  the  night  just  before  dawn.  ...  I  was 
driving  along  in  a  chaise,  thinking  and  thinking. 
.  .  .  All  at  once  I  see  coming  flying  towards  us  at 
full  gallop  a  post-cart  with  three  horses;  my  driver 
had  hardly  time  to  turn  to  the  right,  the  three  horses 
dashed  by,  and  I  noticed  in  it  the  driver  who  had  to 
take  it  back.  .  .  .  Behind  it  came  another,  also  at 
full  speed;  we  had  turned  to  the  right,  it  turned  to  the 
left.  "We  shall  smash  into  each  other,"  flashed  into 
my  mind  .  .  .  one  instant,  and — there  was  a  crash, 
the  horses  were  mixed  up  in  a  black  mass,  my  chaise 
was  rearing  in  the  air,  and  I  was  rolling  on  the  ground 
with  all  my  bags  and  boxes  on  the  top  of  me.  I  leap 
up  and  see — a  third  troika  dashing  upon  us.   .   .  . 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  155 

My  mother  must  have  been  praying  for  me  that 
night,  I  suppose.  If  I  had  been  asleep,  or  if  the 
third  troika  had  come  immediately  after  the  second,  I 
should  have  been  crushed  to  death  or  maimed.  It 
appeared  the  foremost  driver  lashed  on  the  horses, 
while  the  drivers  in  the  second  and  the  third  carts 
were  asleep  and  did  not  see  us.  The  collision  was 
followed  by  the  blankest  amazement  on  both  sides, 
then  a  storm  of  ferocious  abuse.  Tlie  traces  were 
torn,  the  shafts  were  broken,  the  yokes  were  lying 
about  on  the  road.  .  .  .  Ah,  how  the  drivers  swore ! 
At  night,  in  that  swearing  turbulent  crew,  I  felt  in 
utter  solitude  such  as  I  have  never  felt  before  in  my 
life.   .   .   . 

But  my  paper  is  running  out. 

To  HIS  Sister. 

The  Village  of  Yar,  45  Versts  from  Tomsk, 
May  14,  1890. 

My  glorious  mother,  my  splendid  Masha,  my  sweet 
Misha,  and  all  my  household!  At  Ekaterinburg  I 
got  my  reply  telegram  from  Tyumen.  "The  first 
steamer  to  Tomsk  goes  on  the  18th  May."  This 
meant  that,  whether  I  liked  it  or  not,  I  must  do  the 
journey  with  horses.  So  I  did.  I  drove  out  of 
Tyumen  on  the  third  of  May  after  spending  in 
Ekaterinburg  two  or  three  days,  which  I  devoted  to 
the  repair  of  my  coughing  and  hasmorrhoidal  per- 
son. Besides  the  public  posting  service,  one  can  get 
private  drivers  that  take  one  across  Siberia.  I 
chose  the  latter:  it  is  just  the  same.  They  put  me, 
the  servant  of  God,  into  a  basketwork  chaise  and 
drove  me  with  two  horses ;   one  sits  in  the  basket  like 


156  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

a  goldfinch,  looking  at  God's  world  and  thinking  of 
nothing.  .  .  .  The  plain  of  Siberia  begins,  I  think, 
from  Ekaterinburg,  and  ends  goodness  knows  where; 
I  should  say  it  is  very  like  our  South  Russian  Steppe, 
except  for  the  little  birch  copses  here  and  there  and 
the  cold  wind  that  stings  one's  cheeks.  Spring  has 
not  begun  yet.  There  is  no  green  at  all,  the  woods 
are  bare,  the  snow  has  not  thawed  everywhere. 
There  is  opaque  ice  on  the  lakes.  On  the  ninth  of 
May  there  was  a  hard  frost,  and  to-day,  the  fourteenth, 
snow  has  fallen  to  the  depth  of  three  or  four  inches. 
No  one  speaks  of  spring  but  the  ducks.  Ah,  what 
masses  of  ducks !  Never  in  my  life  have  I  seen  such 
abundance.  They  fly  over  one's  head,  they  fly  up 
close  to  the  chaise,  swim  on  the  lakes  and  in  the  pools 
— in  short,  with  the  poorest  sort  of  gun  I  could  have 
shot  a  thousand  in  one  day.  One  can  hear  the  wild 
geese  calling.  .  .  .  There  are  lots  of  them  here  too. 
One  often  comes  upon  a  string  of  cranes  or  swans. 
.  .  .  Snipe  and  woodcock  flutter  about  in  the  birch 
copses.  The  hares  which  are  not  eaten  or  shot  here, 
stand  on  their  hindlegs,  and,  pricking  up  their  ears, 
watch  the  passer-by  with  an  inquisitive  stare  without 
the  slightest  misgiving.  They  are  so  often  running 
across  the  road  that  to  see  them  doing  so  is  not  con- 
sidered a  bad  omen. 

It's  cold  driving  .  .  .  ;  I  have  my  fur  coat  on. 
My  body  is  all  right,  but  my  feet  are  freezing.  I 
wrap  them  in  the  leather  overcoat — but  it  is  no  use. 
...  I  have  two  pairs  of  breeches  on.  Well,  one 
drives  on  and  on.  .  .  .  Telegraph  poles,  pools, 
birch  copses  flash  by.  Here  we  overtake  some 
emigrants,  then  an  etape.  .  .  .  We  meet  tramps 
with  pots  on  their  back;   these  gentry  promenade  all 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  157 

over  the  plain  of  Siberia  without  hindrance.      One 
time  they  will  murder  some  poor  old  woman  to  take 
her  petticoat  for  their  leg-wrappers;  at  another  they 
will  strip  from  the  verst  post  the  metal  plate  with  the 
number  on  it — it  might  be  useful;   at  another  will 
smash  the  head  of  some  beggar  or  knock  out  the 
eyes  of  some  brother  exile;   but  they  never  touch 
travellers.     Altogether,  travelling  here  is  absolutely 
safe  as  far  as  brigands  are  concerned.     Neither  the 
post-drivers  nor  the  private  ones  from  Tyumen  to^ 
Tomsk  remember  an  instance  of  any  things  bein^ 
stolen  from  a  traveller.    When  you  reach  a  station  you: 
leave  your  things  outside;   if  you  ask  v/hether  they 
won't  be  stolen,  they  merely  smile  in  answer.      It  is; 
not  the  thing  even  to  speak  of  robbery  and  murder  oni 
the  road.     I  believe,  if  I  were  to  lose  my  money  in 
the  station  or  in  the  chaise,  the  driver  would  certainly 
give  it  me  if  he  found  it,  and  would  not  boast  of  hav- 
ing done  so.     Altogether  the  people  here  are  good 
and  kindly,   and  have   excellent  traditions.     Their 
rooms  are  simply  furnished  but  clean,  with  claims  to> 
luxury;  the  beds  are  soft,  all  feather  mattresses  and; 
big  pillows.     The  floors  are  painted  or  covered  with' 
home-made   linen  rugs.     The   explanation  of  this,, 
of  course,  is  their  prosperity,  the  fact  that  a  family 
has  sixteen  dessyatins"^  of  black  earth,  and  that  excel- 
lent w^heat   grows  in   this  black  earth.      (Wheaten 
flour  costs  thirty  kopecks  a  pood  here.f)      But  it  can- 
not all  be  put  down  to  prosperity  and  being  well  fed. 
One  must  give  some  of  the  credit  to  their  manner  of 
life.     When  you  go  at  night  into  a  room  where  peo- 
ple are  asleep,  the  nose  is  not  aware  of  any  stuffiness 
or  "Russian  smell."     It  is  true  one  old  woman  when 
•  I.e.,  about  48  acres.  f  I.e.,  about  lY^^-  for  36  lb. 


158  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

she  handed  me  a  teaspoon  wiped  it  on  the  back  of  her 
skirt;  but  they  don't  set  you  down  to  drink  tea  with- 
out a  tablecloth,  and  they  don't  search  in  each  other's 
heads  in  your  presence,  they  don't  put  their  fingers 
inside  the  glass  when  they  hand  you  milk  or  water; 
the  crockery  is  clean,  the  kvass  is  transparent  as  beer 
— in  fact,  there  is  a  cleanliness  of  which  our  Little 
Russians  can  only  dream,  yet  the  Little  Russians  are 
far  and  away  cleaner  than  the  Great  Russians !  They 
make  the  most  delicious  bread  here — I  over-ate  my- 
self with  it  at  first.  The  pies  and  pancakes  and 
Iritters  and  the  fancy  rolls,  which  remind  one  of 
the  spongy  Little  Russian  ring  rolls,  are  very  good 
too.  .  .  .  But  all  the  rest  is  not  for  the  European 
stomach.  For  instance,  I  am  regaled  everywhere 
with  "duck  broth."  It's  perfectly  disgusting,  a 
muddy-looking  liquid  with  bits  of  wild  duck  and  un- 
cooked onion  floating  in  it.  .  .  .  I  once  asked  them 
to  make  me  some  soup  from  meat  and  to  fry  me  some 
perch.  They  gave  me  soup  too  salt,  dirty,  with  hard 
bits  of  skin  instead  of  meat ;  and  the  perch  was  cooked 
with  the  scales  on  it.  They  make  their  cabbage  soup 
from  salt  meat;  they  roast  it  too.  They  have  just 
served  me  some  salt  meat  roasted :  it's  most  repulsive ; 
I  chewed  at  it  and  gave  it  up.  They  drink  brick  tea. 
It  is  a  decoction  of  sage  and  beetles — that's  what  it 
is  like  in  taste  and  appearance. 

By  the  way,  I  brought  from  Ekaterinburg  a  quarter 
of  a  pound  of  tea,  five  pounds  of  sugar,  and  three 
lemons.  It  was  not  enough  tea  and  there  is  nowhere 
to  buy  any.  In  these  scurvy  little  towns  even  the 
government  officials  drink  brick  tea,  and  even  the  best 
shops  don't  keep  tea  at  more  than  one  rouble  fifty 
kopecks  a  pound.     I  have  to  drink  the  sage  brew. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  159 

The  distance  apart  of  the  posting  stations  depends 
on  the  distance  of  the  nearest  villages  from  each  other 
— that  is,  20  to  40  versts.  The  villages  here  are 
large,  there  are  no  little  hamlets.  There  are  churches 
and  schools  everywhere,  the  huts  are  of  wood  and 
there  are  some  with  two  storeys. 

Towards  the  evening  the  road  and  the  puddles 
begin  to  freeze,  and  at  night  there  is  a  regular  frost, 
one  wants  an  extra  fur  coat  .  .  .  Brrr!  It's  jolting, 
for  the  mud  is  transformed  into  hard  lumps.  One's 
soul  is  shaken  inside  out.  .  .  .  Towards  daybreak 
one  is  fearfully  exhausted  by  the  cold,  by  the  jolting 
and  the  jingle  of  the  bells:  one  has  a  passionate 
longing  for  warmth  and  a  bed.  While  they  change 
horses  one  curls  up  in  some  corner  and  at  once  drops 
asleep,  and  a  minute  later  the  driver  pulls  at  one's 
sleeve  and  says:  "Get  up,  friend,  it  is  time  to  start." 
On  the  second  night  I  had  acute  toothache  in  my  heels. 
It  was  unbearably  painful.  I  wondered  whether 
they  were  frostbitten. 

I  can't  write  more  though.  The  "president,"  that 
is  the  district  police  inspector,  has  come.  We  have 
made  acquaintance  and  are  beginning  to  talk.  Good- 
bye till  to-morrow. 

Tomsk, 
May  16. 

It  seems  my  strong  boots  were  the  cause,  being  too 
tight  at  the  back.  My  sweet  Misha,  if  you  ever  have 
any  children,  which  I  have  no  doubt  you  will,  the 
advice  I  bequeath  to  them  is  not  to  run  after  cheap 
goods.  Cheapness  in  Russian  goods  is  the  label  of 
worthlessness.  To  my  mind  it  is  better  to  go  bare- 
foot than  to  wear  cheap  boots.     Picture  my  agony! 


160  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

I  keep  getting  out  of  the  chaise,  sitting  down  on  damp 
ground  and  taking  off  my  boots  to  rest  my  heels.  So 
comfortable  in  the  frost!  I  had  to  buy  felt  over- 
boots  in  Ishim.  ...  So  I  drove  in  felt  boots  till 
they  collapsed  from  the  mud  and  the  damp. 

In  the  morning  between  five  and  six  o'clock  one 
cirinks  tea  at  a  hut.  Tea  on  a  journey  is  a  great 
blessing.  I  know^  its  value  now,  and  drink  it  with  the 
fury  of  a  Yanov.  It  warms  one  through  and  drives 
away  sleep ;  one  eats  a  lot  of  bread  with  it,  and  in  the 
absence  of  other  nourishment,  bread  has  to  be  eaten 
in  great  quantities;  that  is  why  peasants  eat  so  much 
bread  and  farinaceous  food.  One  drinks  tea  and  talks 
wdth  the  peasant  women,  who  are  sensible,  tender- 
hearted, industrious,  as  well  as  being  devoted  mothers 
and  more  free  than  in  European  Russia;  their  hus- 
bands don't  abuse  or  beat  them,  because  they  are  as 
tall,  as  strong,  and  as  clever  as  their  lords  and  masters 
are.  They  act  as  drivers  when  their  husbands  are 
away  from  home;  they  like  making  jokes.  They  are 
not  severe  with  their  children,  they  spoil  them.  The 
children  sleep  on  soft  beds  and  lie  as  long  as  they  like, 
drink  tea  and  eat  with  the  men,  and  scold  the  latter 
when  they  laugh  at  them  affectionately.  There  is 
no  diphtheria.  Malignant  smallpox  is  prevalent  here, 
but  strange  to  say,  it  is  less  contagious  than  in  other 
parts  of  the  world;  two  or  three  catch  it  and  die  and 
that  is  the  end  of  the  epidemic.  There  are  no  hos- 
pitals or  doctors.  The  doctoring  is  done  by  feld- 
shers.  Bleeding  and  cupping  are  done  on  a  grand- 
iose, brutal  scale.  I  examined  a  Jew  with  cancer  in 
the  liver.  The  Jew  was  exhausted,  hardly  breathing, 
but  that  did  not  prevent  the  feldsher  from  cupping 
him  twelve  times.     Apropos  of  the  Jews.     Here  they 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  161 

till  the  land,  work  as  drivers  and  ierry-men,  trade  and 
are  called  Krestyany,^  because  they  are  de  jure  and 
de  facto  Krestyany.  They  enjoy  universal  respect, 
and  according  to  the  "president"  they  are  not  in- 
frequently chosen  as  village  elders.  I  saw  a  tall  thin 
Jew  who  scowled  with  disgust  and  spat  when  the 
^'president"  told  indecent  stories:  a  chaste  soul;  his 
wife  makes  splendid  fish-soup.  The  wife  of  the  Jew 
who  had  cancer  regaled  me  with  pike  caviare  and  with 
most  delicious  white  bread.  One  hears  nothing  of 
exploitation  by  the  Jews.  And,  by  the  way,  about  the 
Poles.  There  are  a  few  exiles  here,  sent  from  Poland 
in  1864.  They  are  good,  hospitable,  and  very  re- 
fined people.  Some  of  them  live  in  a  very  wealthy 
way;  others  are  very  poor,  and  serve  as  clerks  at  the 
stations.  Upon  the  amnesty  the  former  went  back 
to  their  own  country,  but  soon  returned  to  Siberia 
again — here  they  are  better  off;  the  latter  dream  of 
their  native  land,  though  they  are  old  and  infirm. 
At  Ishim  a  wealthy  Pole,  Pan  Zalyessky,  who  has  a 
daughter  like  Sasha  Kiselyov,  for  a  rouble  gave  me  an 
excellent  dinner  and  a  room  to  sleep  in;  he  keeps  an 
inn  and  has  become  a  money-grubber  to  the  marrow 
of  his  bones;  he  fleeces  everyone,  but  yet  one  feels  the 
Polish  gentleman  in  his  manner,  in  the  way  the  meals 
are  served,  in  everything.  He  does  not  go  back  to 
Poland  through  greed,  and  through  greed  endures 
snow  till  St.  Nikolay's  day;  when  he  dies  his  daugh- 
ter, who  was  born  at  Ishim,  will  remain  here  for  ever 
and  so  will  multiply  the  black  eyes  and  soft  features 
in  Siberia!  This  casual  intermixture  of  blood  is  to 
the  good,  for  the  Siberian  people  are  not  beautiful. 
There  are  no  dark-haired  people.  Perhaps  you 
*  I.e.,  Peasants,  literally  "Christians."— T^raTW^afor's  Note. 


162  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

would  like  me  to  write  about  the  Tatars  ?  Certainly. 
There  are  very  few  of  them  here.  They  are  good  peo- 
ple. In  the  province  of  Kazan  everyone  speaks  well 
of  them,  even  the  priests,  and  in  Siberia  they  are 
"better  than  the  Russians"  as  the  "president"  said  to 
me  in  the  presence  of  Russians,  who  assented  to  this 
by  their  silence.  My  God,  how  rich  Russia  is  in  good 
people!  If  it  were  not  for  the  cold  which  deprives 
Siberia  of  the  summer,  and  if  it  were  not  for  the  of- 
ficials who  corrupt  the  peasants  and  the  exiles,  Siberia 
would  be  the  richest  and  happiest  of  lands. 

I  have  nothing  for  dinner.  Sensible  people 
usually  take  twenty  pounds  of  provisions  when  they 
go  to  Tomsk.  It  seems  I  was  a  fool  and  so  I  have  fed 
for  a  fortnight  on  nothing  but  milk  and  eggs,  which 
are  boiled  so  that  the  yolk  is  hard  and  the  white  is  soft. 
One  is  sick  of  such  fare  in  two  days.  I  have  only 
twice  had  dinner  during  the  whole  journey,  not  count- 
ing the  Jewess's  fish-soup,  which  I  swallowed  after 
I  had  had  enough  to  eat  with  my  tea.  I  have  not 
had  any  vodka:  the  Siberian  vodka  is  disgusting,  and 
indeed,  I  got  out  of  the  habit  of  taking  it  while  I  was 
on  the  way  to  Ekaterinburg.  One  ought  to  drink 
vodka:  it  stimulates  the  brain,  dull  and  apathetic 
from  travelling,  which  makes  one  stupid  and  feeble. 

Stop!  I  can't  write:  the  editor  of  the  Sibirsky 
Vyestnik,  N.,  a  local  Nozdryov,  a  drunkard  and  a 
rake,  has  come  to  make  my  acquaintance. 

N.  has  drunk  some  beer  and  gone  away.  I  con- 
tinue. 

For  the  first  three  days  of  my  journey  my  collar- 
bones, my  shoulders  and  my  vertebrae  ached  from  the 
shaking  and  jolting.  I  couldn't  stand  or  sit  or  he. 
.   .   .     But  on  the  other  hand,  all  pains  in  my  head 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  163 

and  chest  have  vanished,  my  appetite  has  developed 
incredibly,  and  my  haemorrhoids  have  subsided  com- 
pletely. The  overstrain,  the  constant  worry  with 
luggage  and  so  on,  and  perhaps  the  farewell  drinking 
parties  in  Moscow,  had  brought  on  spitting  of  blood  in 
the  mornings,  which  induced  something  like  depres- 
sion, arousing  gloomy  thoughts,  but  towards  the  end 
of  the  journey  it  has  left  off;  now  I  haven't  even  a 
cough.  It  is  a  long  time  since  I  have  coughed  so  lit- 
tle as  now,  after  being  for  a  fortnight  in  the  open  air. 
After  the  first  three  days  of  travelling  my  body  grew 
used  to  the  jolting,  and  in  time  I  did  not  notice  the 
coming  of  midday  and  then  of  evening  and  night. 
The  time  flew  by  rapidly  as  it  does  in  serious  illness. 
You  think  it  is  scarcely  midday  when  the  peasants 
say — "You  ought  to  put  up  for  the  night,  sir,  or  we 
may  lose  our  way  in  the  dark";  you  look  at  your 
watch,  and  it  is  actually  eight  o'clock. 

They  drive  quickly,  but  the  speed  is  nothing  re- 
markable. Probably  I  have  come  upon  the  roads  in 
bad  condition,  and  in  winter  travelling  would  have 
been  quicker.  They  dash  uphill  at  a  gallop,  and  be- 
fore setting  off  and  before  the  driver  gets  on  the 
box,  the  horses  need  two  or  three  men  to  hold  them. 
The  horses  remind  me  of  the  fire  brigade  horses  in 
Moscow.  One  day  we  nearly  ran  over  an  old  woman, 
and  another  time  almost  dashed  into  an  etape.  Now, 
would  you  like  an  adventure  for  which  I  am  indebted 
to  Siberian  driving?  Only  I  beg  mother  not  to  wail 
and  lament,  for  it  all  ended  well.  On  the  6th  of 
May  towards  daybreak  I  was  being  driven  with  two 
horses  by  a  very  nice  old  man.  It  was  a  little  chaise, 
I  was  drowsy,  and,  to  while  away  the  time,  watched 
the  gleaming  of  zigzagging  lights  in  the  fields  and 


164  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

birch  copses — it  was  last  year's  grass  on  fire;  it  is 
their  habit  here  to  burn  it.  Suddenly  I  hear  the  swift 
rattle  of  wheels,  a  post-cart  at  full  speed  comes  flying 
towards  us  like  a  bird,  my  old  man  hastens  to  move 
to  the  right,  the  three  horses  dash  by,  and  I  see  in 
the  dusk  a  huge  heavy  post-cart  with  a  driver  for  the 
return  journey  in  it.  It  was  followed  by  a  second  cart 
also  going  at  full  speed.  We  made  haste  to  move 
aside  to  the  right.  To  my  great  amazement  and 
alarm  the  approaching  cart  moved  not  to  its  right, 
but  its  left.  ...  I  hardly  had  time  to  think,  "Good 
heavens!  we  shall  run  into  each  other,"  when  there 
was  a  desperate  crash,  the  horses  were  mixed  up  in 
a  dark  blur,  the  yokes  fell  off,  my  chaise  reared  up 
into  the  air,  and  I  flew  to  the  ground,  and  my  lug- 
gage on  the  top  of  me.  But  that  was  not  all.  .  .  . 
A  third  cart  was  dashing  upon  us.  This  really  ought 
to  have  smashed  me  and  my  luggage  to  atoms  but, 
thank  God !  I  was  not  asleep,  I  broke  no  bones  in  the 
fall,  and  managed  to  jump  up  so  quickly  that  I  was 
able  to  get  out  of  the  way.  "Stop,"  I  bawled  to  the 
third  cart,  "Stop!"  The  third  dashed  up  to  the  sec- 
ond and  stopped.  Of  course  if  I  were  able  to  sleep 
in  a  chaise,  or  if  the  third  cart  had  followed  instantly 
on  the  second,  I  should  certainly  have  come  back  a 
cripple  or  a  headless  horseman.  The  results  of  the 
collision  were  broken  shafts,  torn  traces,  yokes  and 
luggage  scattered  on  the  ground,  the  horses  scared 
and  harassed,  and  the  alarming  feeling  that  we  had 
just  been  in  danger.  It  turned  out  that  the  first 
driver  had  lashed  up  the  horses;  while  in  the  other 
two  carts  the  drivers  were  asleep,  and  the  horses 
followed  the  first  team  with  no  one  controlling  them. 
On  recovering  from  the  shock,  my  old  man  and  the 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  165 

other  three  men  fell  to  abusing  each  other  ferociously. 
Oh,  how  they  swore!  I  thought  it  would  end  in  a 
fight.  You  can't  imagine  the  feeling  of  isolation  in 
the  middle  of  that  savage  swearing  crew  in  the  open 
country,  just  before  dawn,  in  sight  of  the  fires  far 
and  near  consuming  the  grass,  but  not  warming  the 
cold  night  air!  Oh,  how  heavy  my  heart  was !  One 
listened  to  the  swearing,  looked  at  the  broken  shafts 
and  at  one's  tormented  luggage,  and  it  seemed  as 
though  one  were  cast  away  in  another  world,  as  though 
one  would  be  crushed  in  a  moment.  .  .  .  After  an 
hour's  abuse  my  old  man  began  splicing  together 
the  shafts  with  cord  and  tying  up  the  traces ;  my  straps 
were  forced  into  the  service  too.  We  got  to  the  sta- 
tion somehow,  crawling  along  and  stopping  from  time 
to  time. 

After  five  or  six  days  rain  with  high  winds  began. 
It  rained  day  and  night.  The  leather  overcoat  came 
to  the  rescue  and  kept  me  safe  from  rain  and  wind. 
It's  a  wonderful  coat.  The  mud  was  almost  im- 
passable, the  drivers  began  to  be  unwilling  to  go 
on  at  night.  But  what  was  worst  of  all,  and  what 
I  shall  never  forget,  was  crossing  the  rivers.  One 
reaches  a  river  at  night.  .  .  .  One  begins  shouting 
and  so  does  the  driver.  .  .  .  Rain,  wind,  pieces  of 
ice  glide  down  the  river,  there  is  a  sound  of  splashing. 
-  .  .  And  to  add  to  our  gaiety  there  is  the  cry  of  a 
heron.  Herons  live  on  the  Siberian  rivers,  so  it 
seems  they  don't  consider  the  climate  but  the  geo- 
graphical position.  .  .  .  Well,  an  hour  later,  in  the 
darkness,  a  huge  ferry-boat  of  the  shape  of  a  barge 
comes  into  sight  with  huge  oars  that  look  like  the 
pincers  of  a  crab.  The  ferry-men  are  a  rowdy  set, 
for  the  most  part  exiles  banished  here  by  the  verdict 


166  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

of  society  for  their  vicious  life.  They  use  insuffer- 
ably bad  language,  shout,  and  ask  for  money  for 
vodka.  .  .  .  The  ferr^ang  across  takes  a  long,  long 
time  ...  an  agonizingly  long  time.  The  ferry- 
boat crawls.  Again  the  feeling  of  loneliness,  and  the 
heron  seems  calling  on  purpose,  as  though  he  means 
to  say:  "Don't  be  frightened,  old  man,  I  am  here,  the 
Lintvaryovs  have  sent  me  here  from  the  Psyol." 

On  the  7th  of  May  when  I  asked  for  horses  the 
driver  said  the  Irtysh  had  overflowed  its  banks  and 
flooded  the  meadows,  that  Kuzma  had  set  off  the  day 
before  and  had  difficulty  in  getting  back,  and  that  I 
could  not  go,  but  must  wait.  ...  I  asked:  "Wait  till 
when?"  Answer:  "The  Lord  onlv  knows!"  That 
was  vague.  Besides,  I  had  taken  a  vow  to  get  rid 
on  the  journey  of  two  of  my  vices  which  were  a  source 
of  considerable  expense,  trouble,  and  inconvenience; 
I  mean  my  readiness  to  give  in,  and  be  overpersuaded. 
I  am  quick  to  agree,  and  so  I  have  had  to  travel  any- 
how, sometimes  to  pay  double  and  to  wait  for  hours 
at  a  time.  I  had  taken  to  refusing  to  agree  and  to  be- 
lieve— and  my  sides  have  ached  less.  For  instance, 
they  bring  out  not  a  proper  carriage  but  a  common, 
jolting  cart.  I  refuse  to  travel  in  the  jolting  cart, 
I  insist,  and  the  carriage  is  sure  to  appear,  though 
they  may  have  declared  that  there  was  no  such  thing 
in  the  whole  village,  and  so  on.  Well,  I  suspected 
that  the  Irtysh  floods  were  invented  simply  to  avoid 
driving  me  by  night  through  the  mud.  I  pro- 
tested and  told  them  to  start.  The  peasant  who 
had  heard  of  the  floods  from  Kuzma,  and  had  not 
himself  seen  them,  scratched  himself  and  consented ; 
the  old  men  encouraged  him,  saying  that  when  they 
were  young  and  used  to  drive,  they  were  afraid  of 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  167 

nothing.     We  set  off.     Much  rain,  a  vicious  wind, 
cold  .   .   .  and  felt  boots  on  my  feet.     Do  you  know 
what  felt  boots  are  like  when  they  are  soaked?     They 
are  like  boots  of  jelly.     We  drive  on  and  on,  and  be- 
hold, there  lies  stretched  before  my  eyes  an  immense 
lake  from  which  the  earth  appears  in  patches  here 
and   there,   and   bushes   stand   out:    these   are   the 
flooded    meadows.     In    the    distance   stretches   the 
steep  bank  of  the  Irtysh,  on  which  there  are  white 
streaks  of  snow.   .   .   .     We  begin  driving  through 
the  lake.     We  might  have  turned  back,  but  obstinacy 
prevented  me,  and  an  incomprehensible  impulse  of 
defiance  mastered  me — that  impulse  which  made  me 
bathe  from  the  yacht  in  the  middle  of  the  Black  Sea 
and  has  impelled  me  to  not  a  few  acts  of  folly.   .   .  I 
suppose  it  is  a  special  neurosis.     We  drive  on  and 
make  for  the  little  islands  and  strips  of  land.     The  di- 
rection is  indicated  by  bridges  and  planks ;  they  have 
been  washed  away.     To  cross  by  them  we  had  to  un- 
harness the  horses  and  lead  them  over  one  by  one. 
.   .   .     The  driver  unharnesses  the  horses,  I  jump  out 
into  the  water  in  my  felt  boots  and  hold  them.   .   .   . 
A  pleasant  diversion !     And  the  rain  and  wind.   .   .   . 
Queen  of  Heaven!     At  last  we  get  to  a  little  island 
where  there  stands  a  hut  without  a  roof.   .   .   .     Wet 
horses  are  wandering  about  in  the  wet  dung.     A 
peasant  with  a  long  stick  comes  out  of  the  hut  and 
undertakes  to  guide  us.     He  rheasures  the  depth  of 
the  water  with  his  stick,  and  tries  the  ground.     He 
led  us  out — God  bless  him  for  it! — on  to  a  long  strip 
of  ground  which  he  called  "the  ridge."     He  instructs 
us  that  we  must  keep  to  the  right — or  perhaps  it  was 
to  the  left,  I  don't  remember — and  get  on  to  another 
ridge.     This  we  do.     My  felt  boots   are   soaking 


168  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

and  squelching,  my  socks  are  snuffling.  The  driver 
says  nothing  and  clicks  dejectedly  to  his  horses.  He 
would  gladly  turn  back,  but  by  now  it  was  late,  it 
was  dark.  ...  At  last — oh,  joy! — we  reach  the 
Irtysh.  .  .  .  The  further  bank  is  steep  but  the  near 
bank  is  sloping.  The  near  one  is  hollowed  out,  looks 
slippery,  hateful,  not  a  trace  of  vegetation.  .  .  . 
The  turbid  water  splashes  upon  it  with  crests  of  white 
foam,  and  dashes  back  again  as  though  disgusted  at 
touching  the  uncouth  slippery  bank  on  which  it 
seems  that  none  but  toads  and  the  souls  of  murderers 
could  live.  .  .  .  The  Irtysh  makes  no  loud  or  roar- 
ing sound,  but  it  sounds  as  though  it  were  hammering 
on  coffins  in  its  depths.  ...  A  damnable  impres- 
sion! The  further  bank  is  steep,  dark  brown,  deso- 
late.  ... 

There  is  a  hut;  the  ferry-men  live  in  it.  One  of 
them  comes  out  and  announces  that  it  is  impossible 
to  work  the  ferry  as  a  storm  has  come  up.  The  river, 
they  said,  was  wide,  and  the  wind  was  strong.  And 
so  I  had  to  stay  the  night  at  the  hut.  ...  I  remem- 
ber the  night.  The  snoring  of  the  ferry-men  and  my 
driver,  the  roar  of  the  wind,  the  patter  of  the  rain, 
the  mutterings  of  the  Irtysh.  .  .  .  Before  going  to 
sleep  I  wrote  a  letter  to  Mar}^a  Vladimirovna ;  I  was 
reminded  of  the  Bozharovsky  pool. 

In  the  morning  they  were  unwilling  to  ferry  me 
across:  there  was  a  high  wind.  We  had  to  row  across 
in  the  boat.  I  am  rowed  across  the  river,  while  the 
rai?i  comes  lashing  down,  the  wind  blows,  my  luggage 
is  drenched  and  my  felt  boots,  which  had  been  dried 
overnight  in  the  oven,  become  jelly  again.  Oh,  the 
darling  leather  coat!  If  I  did  not  catch  cold  I  owe 
it  entirely  to  that.     When  I  come  back  you  must 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  169 

reward  it  with  an  anointing  of  tallow  or  castor-oil. 
On  the  bank  I  sat  for  a  whole  hour  on  my  portman- 
teau waiting  for  horses  to  come  from  the  village.  I 
remember  it  was  very  shppery  clambering  up  the 
bank.  In  the  village  I  warmed  myself  and  had  some 
tea.  Some  exiles  came  to  beg  for  alms.  Every 
family  makes  forty  pounds  of  wheaten  flour  into 
bread  for  them  every  day.  It's  a  kind  of  forced 
tribute. 

The  exiles  take  the  bread  and  sell  it  for  drink  at 
the  tavern.  One  exile,  a  tattered,  closely  shaven 
old  man,  whose  eyes  had  been  knocked  out  in  the 
tavern  by  his  fellow-exiles,  hearing  that  there  was  a 
traveller  in  the  room  and  taking  me  for  a  merchant, 
began  singing  and  repeating  the  prayers.  He  recited 
the  prayer  for  health  and  for  the  rest  of  the  soul,  and 
sang  the  Easter  hymn,  "Let  the  Lord  arise,"  and 
"With  thy  Saints,  0  Lord" — goodness  knows  what 
he  didn't  sing!  Then  he  began  telling  lies,  saying 
that  he  was  a  Moscow  merchant.  I  noticed  how  this 
drunken  creature  despised  the  peasants  upon  whom 
he  was  living. 

On  the  11th  I  drove  with  posting  horses.  I  read 
the  books  of  complaints  at  the  posting  station  in  my 
boredom. 

...  On  the  12th  of  May  they  would  not  give  me 
horses,  saying  that  I  could  not  drive,  because  the 
River  Ob  had  overflowed  its  banks  and  flooded  all  the 
meadows.  They  advised  me  to  turn  off  the  track  as 
far  as  Krasny  Yar;  then  go  by  boat  twelve  versts 
to  Dubrovin,  and  at  Dubrovin  you  can  get  posting 
horses.  ...  I  drove  with  private  horses  as  far  as 
Krasny  Yar.  I  arrive  in  the  morning ;  I  am  told  there 
is  a  boat,  but  that  I  must  wait  a  little  as  the  grand- 


170  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

father  had  sent  the  workman  to  row  the  president's 
secretary  to  Dubrovin  in  it.     Very  well,  we  will  wait. 
.   .   .     An    hour    passes,    a    second,    a    third.   .   .   . 
Midday  arrives,  then  evening.   .   .   .     Allah  kerim, 
what  a  lot  of  tea  I  drank,  what  a  lot  of  bread  I  ate, 
what  a  lot  of  thoughts  I  thought!     And  what  a  lot 
I  slept!     Night  came  on  and  still  no  boat.   .   .  . 
Early  morning  came.   ...     At  last  at  nine  o'clock 
the  workmen  returned.   .   .   .     Thank  heaven,  we  are 
afloat  at  last!     And  how  pleasant  it  is!     The  air  is 
still,  the  oarsmen  are  good,  the  islands  are  beauti- 
ful.  .   .   .     The  floods  caught  men  and  cattle  una- 
awares,  and  I  see  peasant  women  rowing  in  boats  to 
the  islands  to  milk  the  cows.     And  the  cows  are  lean 
and  dejected.     There  is  absolutely  no  grass  for  them, 
owing  to  the  cold.     I  was  rowed  twelve  versts.     At 
the  station  of  Dubrovin  I  had  tea,  and  for  tea  they 
gave  me,  can  you  imagine!  waffles.   ...     I  suppose 
the  woman  of  the  house  was  an  exile  or  the  wife  of 
an  exile.     At  the  next  station  an  old  clerk,  a  Pole, 
to  whom  I  gave  some  antipyrin  for  his  headache, 
complained  of  his  poverty,  and  said  Count  Sapyega,  a 
Pole  who  was  a  gentleman-in-waiting  at  the  Austrian 
Court,  and  who  assisted  his  fellow-countrymen,  had 
lately  arrived  there  on  his  way  to  Siberia,  "He  stayed 
near  the  station,"  said  the  clerk,  "and  I  didn't  know 
it!     Holy  Mother!     He  would  have  helped  me!      I 
wrote  to  him  at  Vienna,  but  I  got  no  answer,  .  .   ." 
and  so  on.     Why  am  I  not  a  Sapyega?     I  would  send 
this  poor  fellow  to  his  own  country. 

On  the  14th  of  May  again  they  would  not  give  me 
horses.  The  Tom  was  flooded.  How  vexatious! 
It  meant  not  mere  vexation  but  despair !  Fifty  versts 
from  Tomsk  and  how  unexpected !     A  woman  in  my 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  171 

place  would  have  sobbed.  Some  kind-hearted  peo- 
ple found  a  solution  for  me.  "Drive  on,  sir,  as  far  as 
the  Tom,  it  is  only  six  versts  from  here;  there  they 
will  row  you  across  to  Yar,  and  Ilya  Markovitch  will 
take  you  on  from  there  to  Tomsk."  I  hired  a  horse 
and  drove  to  the  Tom,  to  the  place  where  the  boat  was 
to  be.  I  drove — there  was  no  boat.  They  told  me  it 
had  just  set  off  with  the  post,  and  was  hardly  likely  to 
return  as  there  was  such  a  wind.  I  began  waiting. 
.  .  .  The  ground  was  covered  with  snow,  it  rained 
and  hailed  and  the  wind  blew.  .  .  .  One  hour 
passed,  a  second,  and  no  boat.  Fate  was  laughing  at 
me.  I  returned  to  the  station.  There  the  driver  of 
the  mail  with  three  posting  horses  was  just  setting  off 
for  the  Tom.  I  told  him  there  was  no  boat.  He 
stayed.  Fate  rewarded  me;  the  clerk  in  response  to 
my  hesitating  inquiry  whether  there  was  anything  to 
eat  told  me  the  woman  of  the  house  had  some  cabbage 
soup.  Oh,  rapture!  Oh,  radiant  day!  And  the 
daughter  of  the  house  did  in  fact  give  me  some  excel- 
lent cabbage  soup,  with  some  capital  meat  with  roast 
potatoes  and  cucumbers.  I  have  not  had  such  a  din- 
ner since  I  was  at  Pan  Zalyessky's.  After  the  pota- 
toes I  let  myself  go,  and  made  myself  some  coffee. 

Towards  evening  the  mail  driver,  an  elderly  man 
who  had  evidently  endured  a  good  deal  in  his  day, 
and  who  did  not  venture  to  sit  down  in  my  presence, 
began  preparing  to  set  off  to  the  Tom.  I  did  the 
same.  We  drove  off.  As  soon  as  we  reached  the 
river  the  boat  came  into  sight — a  long  boat:  I  have 
never  dreamed  of  a  boat  so  long.  While  the  post  was 
being  loaded  on  to  the  boat  I  witnessed  a  strange 
phenomenon — there  was  a  peal  of  thunder,  a  queer 
thing  in  a  cold  wind,  with  snow  on  the  ground.     They 


172  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

loaded  up  and  rowed  off.  My  sweet  Misha,  forgive 
me  for  being  so  rejoiced  that  I  did  not  bring  you  with 
me!  How  sensible  it  was  of  me  not  to  take  anyone 
with  me!  At  first  our  boat  floated  over  a  meadow 
near  willow-bushes.  ...  As  is  common  before  a 
storm  or  during  a  storm,  a  violent  wind  suddenly 
sprang  up  on  the  water  and  stirred  up  the  waves. 
The  boatman  who  was  sitting  at  the  helm  advised  our 
waiting  in  the  willow-bushes  till  the  storm  was  over. 
They  answered  him  that  if  the  storm  grew  worse, 
they  might  stay  in  the  willow-bushes  till  night  and 
be  drowned  all  the  same.  They  proceeded  to  settle 
it  by  majority  of  votes ^  and  decided  to  row  on.  An 
evil  mocking  fate  is  mine.  Oh,  why  these  jests? 
We  rowed  on  in  silence,  concentrating  our  thoughts. 
...  I  remember  the  figure  of  the  mail-driver,  a 
man  of  varied  experiences.  I  remember  the  little 
soldier  who  suddenly  became  as  crimson  as  cherry 
juice.  I  thought,  if  the  boat  upsets  I  will  fling  off  my 
fur  coat  and  my  leather  coat  .  .  .  then  my  felt  boots, 
then  .  .  .  and  so  on.  .  .  .  But  the  bank  came 
nearer  and  nearer,  one's  soul  felt  easier  and  easier, 
one's  heart  throbbed  with  joy,  one  heaved  deep  sighs 
as  though  one  could  breathe  freely  at  last,  and  leapt 
on  the  wet  slippery  bank.   .   .   .     Thank  God! 

At  Ilya  Markovitch's,  the  converted  Jew's,  I  was 
told  that  I  could  not  drive  at  night;  the  road  was 
bad;  that  I  must  remain  till  next  day.  Very  good, 
I  stayed.  After  tea  I  sat  down  to  write  you  this 
letter,  interrupted  by  the  visit  of  the  "president." 
The  president  is  a  rich  mixture  of  Nozdryov,  Hlesta- 
kov  and  a  cur.  A  drunkard,  a  rake,  a  liar,  a  singer,  a 
story-teller,  and  with  all  that  a  good-natured  man. 
He  had  brought  with  him  a  big  trunk  stuffed  full  of 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  17S 

business  papers,  a  bedstead  and  mattress,  a  gun,  and 
a  secretary.  The  secretary  is  an  excellent,  well- 
educated  man,  a  protesting  liberal  who  has  studied  in 
Petersburg,  and  is  free  in  his  ideas;  I  don't  know  how 
he  came  to  Siberia,  he  is  infected  to  the  marrow  of 
his  bones  with  every  sort  of  disease,  and  is  taking  to 
drink,  thanks  to  his  principal,  who  calls  him  Kolya. 
The  representative  of  authority  sends  for  a  cordial. 
"Doctor,"  he  bawls,  "drink  another  glass,  I  beseech 
you  humbly!"  Of  course,  I  drink  it.  The  repre- 
sentative of  authority  drinks  soundly,  lies  out- 
rageously, uses  shameless  language.  We  go  to  bed. 
In  the  morning  a  cordial  is  sent  for  again.  They 
swill  the  cordial  till  ten  o'clock  and  at  last  they  go. 
The  converted  Jew,  Ilya  Markovitch,  whom  the 
peasants  here  idolize — so  I  was  told — gave  me  horses 
to  drive  to  Tomsk. 

The  "president,"  the  secretary  and  I  got  into  the 
same  conveyance.  All  the  way  the  "president"  told 
lies,  drank  out  of  the  bottle,  boasted  that  he  did 
not  take  bribes,  raved  about  the  scenery,  and  shook 
his  fist  at  the  tramps  that  he  met.  We  drove  fifteen 
versts,  then  halt!  The  village  of  Brovkino.  .  .  . 
We  stop  near  a  Jew's  shop  and  go  to  take  "rest  and 
refreshment."  The  Jew  runs  to  fetch  us  a  cordial 
while  his  wife  makes  us  some  fish-soup,  of  which  I 
have  written  to  you  already.  The  "president"  gave 
orders  that  the  sotsky,  the  desyatsky,  and  the  road 
contractor  should  come  to  him,  and  in  his  drunken- 
ness began  reproving  them,  not  the  least  restrained 
by  my  presence.     He  swore  like  a  Tatar. 

I  soon  parted  from  the  "president,"  and  on  the 
evening  of  the  15th  of  May  by  an  appalling  road 
reached  Tomsk.     During  the  last  two  days  I  have 


174  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

only  done  seventy  versts;  you  can  imagine  what  the 
roads  are  like! 

In  Tomsk  the  mud  was  almost  impassable.  Of 
the  town  and  the  manner  of  living  here  I  will  write 
in  a  day  or  two,  but  good-bye  for  now — I  am  tired  of 
writing. 

****** 

There  are  no  poplars.  The  Kuvshinnikov  General 
was  lying.  I  have  seen  no  nightingales.  There  are 
magpies  and  cuckoos. 

I  received  a  telegram  of  eighty  words  from  Suvorin 
to-day. 

Excuse  this  letter's  being  like  a  hotch-potch.  It's 
incoherent,  but  I  can't  help  it.  Sitting  in  an  hotel 
room  one  can't  write  better.  Excuse  its  being  long, 
It's  not  my  fault.  My  pen  ran  away  with  me — be- 
sides, I  wanted  to  go  on  talking  to  you.  It's  three 
o'clock  in  the  night.  My  hand  is  tired.  The  wick 
of  the  candle  wants  snuffing,  I  can  hardly  see.  Write 
to  me  at  Sahalin  every  four  or  five  days.  It  seems 
that  the  post  goes  there,  not  only  by  sea  but  across 
Siberia,  so  I  shall  get  letters  frequently. 

****** 

All  the  Tomsk  people  tell  me  that  there  has  not 
been  a  spring  so  cold  and  rainy  as  this  one  since  1842. 
Half  Tomsk  is  under  water.     My  luck ! 

I  am  eating  sweets. 

I  shall  have  to  stay  at  Tomsk  till  the  rains  are  over. 
They  say  the  road  to  Irkutsk  is  awful. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  175 

Tomsk, 

May  20. 

It  is  Trinity  Sunday  with  you,  while  with  us  even 
the  willow  has  not  yet  come  out,  and  there  is  still 
snow  on  the  banks  of  the  Tom.  To-morrow  I  am 
starting  for  Irkutsk.  I  am  rested.  There  is  no  need 
for  hurry,  as  steam  navigation  on  Lake  Baikal  does 
not  begin  till  the  10th  of  June;  but  I  shall  go  all  the 
same. 

I  am  alive  and  well,  my  money  is  safe;  I  have  a 
slight  pain  in  my  right  eye.     It  aches. 

.  .  .  Everyone  advises  me  to  go  back  across 
America,  as  they  say  one  may  die  of  boredom  in  the 
Volunteer  Fleet;  it's  all  military  discipline  and  red 
tape  regulations,  and  they  don't  often  touch  at  a 
port. 

To  fill  up  my  time  I  have  been  writing  some  im- 
pressions of  my  journey  and  sending  them  to  Novoye 
Vremya;  you  will  read  them  soon  after  the  10th  of 
June.  I  write  a  little  about  everything,  chit-chat. 
I  don't  write  for  glory  but  from  a  financial  point  of 
view,  and  in  consideration  of  the  money  I  have  had 
in  advance. 

Tomsk  is  a  very  dull  town.  To  judge  from  the 
drunkards  whose  acquaintance  I  have  made,  and 
from  the  intellectual  people  who  have  come  to  the 
hotel  to  pay  their  respects  to  me,  the  inhabitants  are 
very  dull  too. 

****** 

In  two  and  a  half  days  I  shall  be  in  Krasnoyarsk, 
and  in  seven  or  eight  in  Irkutsk.  It's  fifteen  hundred 
versts  to  Irkutsk.  I  have  made  myself  coffee  and  am 
just  going  to  drink  it. 


176  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

.  .  .  After  Tomsk  the  Taiga  begins.  We  shall 
see  it. 

My  greeting  to  all  the  Lintvaryovs  and  to  our  old 
Maryushka.  I  beg  mother  not  to  worry  and  not  to 
put  faith  in  bad  dreams.  Have  the  radishes  suc- 
ceeded?    There  are  none  here  at  all. 

Keep  well,  don't  worry  about  money — there  will 
be  plenty;  don't  try  to  spend  less  and  spoil  the  sum- 
mer for  yourselves. 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 


Tomsk, 
May  20,  1890. 


Greetings  to  you  at  last  from  Siberia,  dear  Alexey 
'Sergeyevitch !  I  have  missed  you  and  our  corres- 
pondence terribly. 

I  will  begin  from  the  beginning,  however.  At 
Tyumen  I  was  told  the  first  steamer  to  Tomsk  went 
on  the  18th  of  May.  I  had  to  do  the  journey  with 
horses.  For  the  first  three  days  every  joint  and  sinew 
ached,  but  afterwards  I  got  used  to  the  jolting  and 
felt  no  more  aches.  Only  the  lack  of  sleep,  the  con- 
tinual worry  over  the  luggage,  the  jolting  and  the 
'tasting  brought  on  spitting  of  blood  when  I  coughed, 
and  this  depressed  my  spirits,  which  were  none  too 
grand  before.  For  the  first  few  days  it  was  bearable 
but  then  a  cold  wind  began  to  blow,  the  windows  of 
heaven  were  opened,  the  rivers  flooded  the  meadows 
and  roads,  I  was  continually  having  to  change  my 
chaise  for  a  boat.  You'll  read  of  my  struggles  with 
the  floods  and  the  mud  in  the  article  I  enclose.  I  did 
not  mention  in  it  that  my  big  high  boots  were  tight, 
and  that  I  waded  through  the  mud  and  the  water  in 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  177 

my  felt  boots,  and  that  my  felt  boots  were  soaked 
to  jelly.  The  road  was  so  abominable  that  during 
the  last  two  days  of  my  journey  I  only  did  seventy 
versts. 

When  I  set  off  I  promised  to  send  you  notes  of  my 
journey  after  Tomsk,  since  the  road  between  Tyumen 
and  Tomsk  has  been  described  a  thousand  times 
already.  But  in  your  telegram  you  have  expressed 
the  desire  to  get  my  impressions  of  Siberia  as  quickly 
as  possible,  and  have  even  had  the  cruelty,  sir,  to 
reproach  me  with  lapse  of  memory,  as  though  I  had 
forgotten  you.  It  was  absolutely  impossible  to  write 
on  the  road.  I  kept  a  brief  diary  in  pencil  and  can 
offer  you  now  only  what  is  written  in  that  diary.  To 
avoid  writing  at  great  length  and  getting  mixed  up, 
I  divided  all  my  impressions  into  chapters.  I  am 
sending  you  six  chapters.  They  are  written  for  you 
personally.  I  wrote  for  you  only,  and  so  have  not 
been  afraid  of  being  too  subjective,  and  have  not 
been  afraid  of  there  being  more  of  Chekhov's  feelings 
and  thoughts  than  of  Siberia  in  them.  If  you  find 
some  lines  interesting  and  worth  printing,  give  them  a 
profitable  publicity,  signing  them  with  my  name  and 
printing  them  in  separate  chapters,  a  tablespoonful 
once  an  hour.  The  general  title  can  be  From  Siberia, 
then  From  Trans-Baikalia,  then  From  the  Amur,  and 
so  on. 

You  shall  have  another  helping  from  Irkutsk,  for 
which  I  am  starting  to-morrow.  I  shall  not  be  less 
than  ten  days  on  the  journey — the  road  is  bad.  I 
shall  send  you  a  few  chapters  again,  and  shall  send 
them  whether  you  intend  to  print  them  or  not. 
Read  them  and  when  you  are  tired  of  them  telegraph 
to  me  "Shut  up!" 


178  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

I  have  been  as  hungry  as  a  dog  the  whole  way. 
I  stuffed  myself  with  bread  so  as  not  to  dream  of 
turbot,  asparagus,  and  suchlike.  I  even  dreamed  of 
buckwheat  porridge.  I  have  dreamed  of  it  for  hours 
at  a  time. 

At  Tyumen  I  bought  some  sausage  for  the  journey, 
but  what  sausage!  When  you  take  a  bit  in  your 
mouth  there's  a  sniff  as  though  you  had  gone  into  a 
stable  at  the  very  moment  when  the  coachmen  were 
taking  off  their  leg-wrappers;  when  you  begin  chew- 
ing it,  you  feel  as  though  you  had  fastened  your  teeth 
into  a  dog's  tail  defiled  with  pitch.  Tfoo!  I  ate 
some  once  or  twice,  and  threw  it  away. 

I  have  had  one  telegram  and  the  letter  from  you 
in  which  you  write  that  you  want  to  bring  out  an 
encyclopaedic  dictionary.  I  don't  know  why,  but  the 
nev/s  of  that  dictionary  rejoiced  me  greatly.  Do,  my 
dear  friend!  If  I  am  any  use  for  working  on  it,  I 
will  devote  November  and  December  to  you,  and  will 
spend  those  months  in  Petersburg.  I  will  sit  at  it 
from  morning  till  night. 

I  made  a  fair  copy  of  my  notes  at  Tomsk  in  horrid 
hotel  surroundings,  but  I  took  trouble  about  it  and 
was  not  without  a  desire  to  please  you.  I  thought, 
he  must  be  bored  and  hot  in  Feodosia,  let  him  read 
about  the  cold.  These  notes  will  come  to  you  instead 
of  a  letter  which  has  been  taking  shape  in  my  head 
during  the  whole  journey.  In  return  you  must  send 
to  me  at  Sahalin  all  your  critical  reviews  except  the 
first  two,  which  I  have  read;  have  Peshel's  "Ethnol- 
ogy" sent  me  there  too,  except  the  first  two  instal- 
ments, which  I  have  already. 

The  post  to  Sahalin  goes  both  by  sea  and  across 
Siberia,  so  if  people  write  to  me  I  shall  get  letters 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  179 

often.     Don't  lose  my  address — Island  of  Sahalin, 
Alexandrovsky  Post. 

Oh,  the  expense !  Gewalt!  Thanks  to  the  floods, 
I  had  to  pay  the  drivers  double  and  almost  treble,  for 
it  has  been  fiendishly  hard  work.  My  trunk,  a  very 
charming  article,  has  turned  out  unsuitable  for  the 
journey;  it  takes  a  lot  of  room,  pokes  one  in  the  ribs, 
and  rattles,  and  worst  of  all  threatens  to  burst  open. 
"Don't  take  boxes  on  long  journeys!"  good  people 
said  to  me,  but  I  remembered  this  advice  only  when 
I  had  gone  half-way.  Well,  I  am  leaving  my  trunk 
to  reside  permanently  at  Tomsk,  and  am  buying  in- 
stead of  it  a  sort  of  leather  carcase,  which  has  the 
advantage  that  it  can  be  tied  so  as  to  form  two  halves 
at  the  bottom  of  the  chaise  as  one  likes.  I  paid  six- 
teen roubles  for  it.  Next  point.  To  travel  to  the 
Amur,  changing  one's  conveyance  at  every  station, 
is  torture.  You  shatter  both  yourself  and  all  your 
luggage.  I  was  advised  to  buy  a  trap.  I  bought  one 
to-day  for  one  hundred  and  thirty  roubles.  If  I  don't 
succeed  in  selling  it  at  Sryetensk,  where  my  horse 
journey  ends,  I  shall  be  in  a  fix  and  shall  howl  aloud. 
To-day  I  dined  with  the  editor  of  the  Sibirsky 
Vyestnik,  a  local  Nozdryov,  a  broad  nature.  .  .  .  He 
drank  to  the  tune  of  six  roubles. 

Stop !  They  announce  that  the  deputy  police  mas- 
ter wants  to  see  me.     What  can  it  be?!? 

My  alarm  was  unnecessary.  The  police  officer 
turns  out  to  be  devoted  to  literature  and  himself  an 
author;  he  has  come  to  pay  his  respects  to  me.  He 
went  home  to  fetch  his  play,  and  I  believe  intends 
to  regale  me  with  it.  He  is  just  coming  again  and 
preventing  me  from  writing  to  you.   .   .   . 

.   .   .  My  greetings  to  Nastyusha  and  Boris.     I 


180  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

should  be  genuinely  delighted  for  their  satisfaction 
to  fling  myself  into  the  jaws  of  a  tiger  and  call  them 
to  my  aid,  but,  alas!  I  haven't  reached  the  tigers 
here:  the  only  furry  animals  I  have  seen  so  far  in 
Siberia  are  many  hares  and  one  mouse. 

Stop!  The  pohce  officer  has  returned.  He  has 
not  read  me  his  drama  though  he  brought  it,  but  re- 
galed me  with  a  story.  It's  not  bad,  only  too  local. 
He  showed  me  a  nugget  of  gold.  He  asked  for  some 
vodka.  I  don't  remember  a  single  educated  Siberian 
who  has  not  asked  for  vodka  on  coming  to  see  me. 
He  told  me  he  had  a  mistress,  a  married  woman;  he 
gave  me  a  petition  to  the  Tsar  about  divorce  to 
read.   ... 

****** 

How  glad  I  am  when  I  am  forced  to  stop  some- 
where for  the  night !  I  no  sooner  roll  into  bed  than 
I  am  asleep.  Here,  travelling  and  not  sleeping  at 
night,  one  prizes  sleep  above  everything.  There  is 
no  greater  enjoyment  in  life  than  sleep  when  one 
is  sleepy.  In  Moscow,  in  Russia  generally,  I  never 
was  sleepy  as  I  understand  the  word  now.  I  went  to 
bed  simply  because  one  had  to.  But  now!  Another 
observation.  On  a  journey  one  has  no  desire  for 
spirits.  I  can't  drink.  I  smoke  a  great  deal. 
One's  mind  does  not  work  well.  I  cannot  put  my 
thoughts  together.  Time  flies  rapidly,  so  that  one 
scarcely  notices  it,  from  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  to 
seven  o'clock  in  the  evening.  Evening  comes  quickly 
after  morning.  It's  just  the  same  when  one  is  seri- 
ously ill.  The  wind  and  the  rain  have  made  my  face 
all  scaly,  and  when  I  look  in  the  looking-glass  I  don't 
recognize  my  once  noble  features. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  181 

I  am  not  going  to  describe  Tomsk.  All  the  towns 
are  alike  in  Russia.  Tomsk  is  a  dull  and  intemperate 
town.  There  are  absolutely  no  good-looking  women, 
and  the  disregard  for  justice  is  Asiatic.  The  town  is 
remarkable  for  the  fact  that  governors  die  in  it. 

If  my  letters  are  short,  careless,  or  dry,  don't  be 
cross,  for  one  cannot  always  be  oneself  on  a  journey 
and  write  as  one  wants  to.  The  ink  is  bad,  and  there 
is  always  a  hair  or  a  splodge  on  one's  pen. 


To  HIS  Sister. 


Krasnoyarsk, 
May  28,  1890. 


What  a  deadly  road!  It  was  all  we  could  do  to 
crawl  to  Krasnoyarsk  and  my  trap  had  to  be  repaired 
twice.  The  first  thing  to  be  broken  was  the  vertical 
piece  of  iron  connecting  the  front  of  the  carriage  with 
the  axle;  then  the  so-called  circle  under  the  front 
broke.  I  have  never  in  all  my  life  seen  such  a  road — 
such  impassable  mud  and  such  an  utterly  neglected 
road.  I  am  going  to  write  about  its  horrors  to  the 
Novoye  Vremya,  and  so  won't  talk  about  it  now. 

The  last  three  stations  have  been  splendid;  as  one 
comes  down  to  Krasnoyarsk  one  seems  to  be  getting 
into  a  different  world.  You  come  out  of  the  forest 
into  a  plain  which  is  like  our  Donets  steppe,  but  here 
the  mountain  ridges  are  grander.  The  sun  shines  its 
very  best  and  the  birch-trees  are  out,  though  three  sta- 
tions back  the  buds  were  not  even  bursting.  Thank 
God,  I  have  at  last  reached  a  summer  in  which  there  is 
neither  rain  nor  a  cold  wind.  Krasnoyarsk  is  a  pic- 
turesque, cultured  town ;  compared  with  it,  Tomsk  is 
"'a  pig  in  a  skull-cap  and  the  acme  of  mauvais  ton/' 


182  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

The  streets  are  clean  and  paved,  the  houses  are  of 
stone  and  large,  the  churches  are  elegant. 

I  am  alive  and  perfectly  well.  My  money  is  all 
right,  and  so  are  my  things ;  I  lost  my  woollen  stock- 
ings but  soon  found  them  again. 

Apart  from  my  trap,  everything  so  far  has  been 
satisfactory  and  I  have  nothing  to  complain  of. 
Only  I  am  spending  an  awful  lot  of  money.  Incom- 
petence in  the  practical  affairs  of  life  is  never  felt  so 
much  as  on  a  journey.  I  pay  more  than  I  need  to, 
I  do  the  wrong  thing,  and  I  say  the  wrong  thing,  and 
I  am  always  expecting  what  does  not  happen. 

...  I  shall  be  in  Irkutsk  in  five  or  six  days,  shall 
spend  as  many  days  there,  then  drive  on  to  Sryetensk 
— and  that  will  be  the  end  of  my  journey  on  land. 
For  more  than  a  fortnight  I  have  been  driving  with- 
out a  break,  I  think  about  nothing  else,  I  live  for 
nothing  else;  every  morning  I  see  the  sunrise  from 
beginning  to  end.  I've  grown  so  used  to  it  that  it 
seems  as  though  all  my  life  I  had  been  driving  and 
struggling  with  the  muddy  roads.  When  it  does  not 
rain,  and  there  are  no  pits  of  mud  on  the  road,  one 
feels  queer  and  even  a  little  bored.  And  how  filthy 
I  am,  what  a  rapscallion  I  look!  What  a  state  my 
luckless  clothes  are  in ! 

.  .  .  For  mother's  information:  I  have  still  a  jar 
and  a  half  of  coffee ;  I  feed  on  locusts  and  wild  honey ; 
I  shall  dine  to-day  at  Irkutsk.  The  further  east  one 
gets  the  dearer  everything  is.  Rye  flour  is  seventy 
kopecks  a  pood,  while  on  the  other  side  of  Tomsk  it 
was  twenty-five  and  twenty-seven  kopecks  per  pood, 
and  wheaten  flour  thirty  kopecks.  The  tobacco  sold 
in  Siberia  is  vile  and  loathsome;  I  tremble  because 
mine  is  nearly  done. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  183 

...  I  am  travelling  with  two  lieutenants  and  an 
army  doctor  who  are  all  on  their  way  to  the  Amur. 
So  my  revolver  is  after  all  quite  superfluous.  In 
such  company  hell  would  have  no  terrors.  We  are 
just  having  tea  at  the  station,  and  after  tea  we  are 
going  to  have  a  look  at  the  town. 

I  should  have  no  objection  to  living  in  Krasno- 
yarsk. I  can't  think  why  this  is  a  favourite  place  for* 
sending  exiles  to. 

*  4e-  *  *  *  * 

Your  Homo  Sachaliensis, 

A.  Chekhov. 


To  HIS  Brother  Alexandr. 

Irkutsk, 

June  5,  1890. 

My  European  Brother, 

It  is,  of  course,  unpleasant  to  live  in  Siberia ; 
but  better  to  live  in  Siberia  and  feel  oneself  a  man  of 
moral  worth,  than  to  live  in  Petersburg  with  the  repu- 
tation of  a  drunkard  and  a  scoundrel.  No  reference 
to  present  company. 

*  *  -jf  *  *  * 

Siberia  is  a  cold  and  long  country.  I  drive  on  and 
on  and  see  no  end  to  it.  I  see  little  that  is  new  or  of 
interest,  but  I  feel  and  experience  a  great  deal.  I 
have  contended  with  flooded  rivers,  with  cold,  with 
impassable  mud,  hunger  and  sleepiness:  such  sen- 
sations as  you  could  not  get  for  a  million  in  Moscow ! 
You  ought  to  come  to  Siberia.  Ask  the  authorities 
to  exile  you. 

The  best  of  all  Siberian  towns  is  Irkutsk.     Tomsk 


184  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

is  not  worth  a  brass  farthing,  and  the  district  towns 
are  no  better  than  the  Kryepkaya  in  which  you  were 
so  heedlessly  born.  What  is  most  provoking,  there 
is  nothing  to  eat  in  the  district  towns,  and  oh  dear, 
how  conscious  one  is  of  that  on  the  journey!  You 
get  to  a  town  and  feel  ready  to  eat  a  mountain;  you 
arrive  and — alack! — no  sausage,  no  cheese,  no  meat, 
no  herring  even,  but  the  same  insipid  eggs  and  milk 
as  in  the  villages. 

On  the  whole  I  am  satisfied  with  my  expedition, 
and  don't  regret  having  come.  The  travelling  is 
hard,  but  the  resting  after  it  is  delightful.  I  rest 
with  enjoyment. 

From  Irkutsk  I  shall  make  for  Baikal,  which  I 
shall  cross  by  steamer;  it's  a  thousand  versts  from 
the  Baikal  to  the  Amur,  and  thence  I  shall  go  by 
steamer  to  the  Pacific,  where  the  first  thing  I  shall  do 
is  to  have  a  bath  and  eat  oysters. 

I  got  here  yesterday  and  went  first  of  all  to  have  a 
bath,  then  to  bed.  Oh,  how  I  slept!  I  never 
understood  what  sleep  meant  till  now. 

•5e-  -jf  -jf  *  *  * 

I  bless  you  with  both  hands. 

Your  Asiatic  brother, 

A.  Chekhov. 


To  A.  N.  Pleshtcheyev. 

Irkutsk, 

June  5,  1890. 

A  thousand  greetings  to  you,  dear  Alexey  Niko- 
laevitch. 

At  last  I  have  vanquished  the  most  difficult  three 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  185 

thousand  versts;  I  am  sitting  in  a  decent  hotel  and 
can  write.  I  have  rigged  myself  out  all  in  new  things 
and,  as  far  as  possible,  smart  ones,  for  you  cannot 
imagine  how  sick  I  was  of  my  big  muddy  boots,  of  my 
sheepskin  smelHng  of  tar,  of  my  overcoat  covered  with 
bits  of  hay,  of  dust  and  crumbs  in  my  pockets,  and 
of  my  extremely  dirty  linen.  I  looked  such  a  raga- 
muffin on  the  journey  that  even  the  tramps  eyed  me 
askance;  and  then,  as  ill  luck  would  have  it,  the  cold 
winds  and  rain  chapped  my  face  and  made  it  scaly 
like  a  fish.  Now  at  last  I  am  a  European  again,  and 
I  am  conscious  of  it  all  over. 

Well,  what  am  I  to  write  to  you?  It's  all  so  long 
and  so  vast  that  one  doesn't  know  where  to  begin. 
All  my  experiences  in  Siberia  I  divide  into  three 
periods,  (l)  From  Tyumen  to  Tomsk,  fifteen  hun- 
dred versts,  terrible  cold,  day  and  night,  sheepskin, 
felt  boots,  cold  rains,  winds  and  a  desperate  life- 
and-death  struggle  with  the  flooded  rivers.  The 
rivers  had  flooded  the  meadows  and  roads,  and  I  was 
constantly  exchanging  my  trap  for  a  boat  and  floating 
like  a  Venetian  on  a  gondola ;  the  boats,  the  waiting 
on  the  bank  for  them,  the  rowing  across,  etc.,  all  that 
took  up  so  much  time  that  during  the  last  two  days 
before  reaching  Tomsk,  in  spite  of  all  my  efforts,  I 
only  did  seventy  versts  instead  of  four  or  five 
hundred.  There  were,  moreover,  some  very  uneasy 
and  unpleasant  moments,  especially  when  the  wind 
rose  and  began  to  buffet  the  boat.  (2)  From 
Tomsk  to  Krasnoyarsk,  five  hundred  versts,  impass- 
able mud,  my  chaise  and  I  stuck  in  the  mud  like  flies 
in  thick  jam.  How  many  times  I  broke  my  chaise 
(it's  my  own  property!)  how  many  versts  I  walked! 
how  bespattered  my  countenance  and  my  clothes 


186  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

were !  It  was  not  driving  but  wading  through  mud. 
How  I  swore  at  it  all !  My  brain  would  not  work,  I 
could  do  nothing  but  swear.  I  was  utterly  ex- 
hausted, and  was  very  glad  to  reach  the  posting 
station  at  Krasnoyarsk.  (3)  From  Krasnoyarsk 
to  Irkutsk,  fifteen  hundred  and  sixty-six  versts, 
heat,  smoke  from  the  burning  woods,  and  dust 
— dust  in  one's  mouth,  in  one's  nose,  in  one's 
pockets;  when  you  look  at  yourself  in  the  glass, 
you  think  your  face  has  been  painted.  When, 
on  reaching  Irkutsk,  I  washed  at  the  baths,  the 
soapsuds  off  my  head  were  not  white  but  of  an 
ashen  brown  colour,  as  though  I  were  washing  a  horse. 

When  I  get  home  I  will  tell  you  about  the  Yenissey 
and  the  Taiga — very  interesting  and  curious,  for  it  is 
something  quite  new  to  a  European;  everything  else 
is  ordinary  and  monotonous.  Roughly  speaking, 
the  scenery  of  Siberia  is  not  very  different  from  that 
of  European  Russia;  there  are  differences,  but  they 
are  not  very  noticeable.  Travelling  is  perfectly 
safe. 

Robbers  and  highwaymen  are  all  nonsense  and 
fairy  tales.  A  revolver  is  utterly  unnecessary,  and 
you  are  as  safe  at  night  in  the  forest  as  you  are  by  day 
on  the  Nevsky  Prospect.  It's  different  for  anyone 
travelling  on  foot.   .   .   . 

To  N.  A.  Leikin. 

Irkutsk, 
June  5,  1890. 

Greetings,  dear  Nikolay  Alexandrovitch ! 

I  send  you  heartfelt  good  wishes  from  Irkutsk, 
from  the  depths  of  Siberia.  I  reached  Irkutsk  last 
night  and  was  very  glad  to  have  arrived,  as  I  was 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  187 

exhausted  by  the  journey  and  missed  friends  and 
relations,  to  whom  I  had  not  written  for  ages.  Well, 
what  is  there  of  interest  to  write  to  you?  I  will  begin 
by  telling  you  that  the  journey  is  extraordinarily 
long.  From  Tyumen  to  Irkutsk  I  have  driven  more 
than  three  thousand  versts.  From  Tyumen  to 
Tomsk  I  had  cold  and  flooded  rivers  to  contend  with. 
The  cold  was  awful;  on  Ascension  Day  there  was 
frost  and  snow,  so  that  I  could  not  take  off  my  sheep- 
skin and  felt  boots  until  I  reached  the  hotel  at 
Tomsk.  As  for  the  floods,  they  were  a  veritable 
plague  of  Egypt.  The  rivers  rose  above  their  banks 
and  overflowed  the  meadows,  and  with  them  the 
roads,  for  dozens  of  versts  around.  I  was  continually 
having  to  exchange  my  chaise  for  a  boat,  and  one 
could  not  get  a  boat  for  nothing — for  a  good  boat 
one  had  to  pay  with  one's  heart's  blood,  for  one  had  to 
sit  waiting  on  the  bank  for  twenty-four  hours  at  a 
stretch  in  the  cold  wind  and  the  rain.  .  .  .  From 
Tomsk  to  Krasnoyarsk  was  a  desperate  struggle 
through  impassable  mud.  My  goodness,  it  frightens 
me  to  think  of  it!  How  often  I  had  to  mend  mv 
chaise,  to  walk,  to  swear,  to  get  out  of  my  chaise  and 
get  into  it  again,  and  so  on !  It  sometimes  happened 
that  I  was  from  six  to  ten  hours  getting  from  one 
station  to  another,  and  every  time  the  chaise  had  to  be 
mended  it  took  from  ten  to  fifteen  hours.  From  Kras- 
noyarsk to  Irkutsk  was  fearfully  hot  and  dusty.  Add 
to  all  that  hunger,  dust  in  one's  nose,  one's  eyes 
glued  together  with  sleep,  the  continual  dread  that 
something  would  get  broken  in  the  chaise  (it  is  my 
own),  and  boredom.  .  .  .  Nevertheless  I  am  well 
content,  and  I  thank  God  that  He  has  given  me  the 
strength  and  opportunity  to  make  this  journey.    I  have 


188  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

seen  and  experienced  a  great  deal,  and  it  has  all  been 
very  new  and  interesting  to  me  not  as  a  literary  man, 
but  as  a  human  being.  The  Yenissey,  the  Taiga,  the 
stations,  the  drivers,  the  wild  scenery,  the  wild  life, 
the  physical  agonies  caused  by  the  discomforts  of 
the  journey,  the  enjoyment  I  got  from  rest — all  taken 
together  is  so  delightful  that  I  can't  describe  it.  The 
mere  fact  that  I  have  been  for  more  than  a  month  in 
the  open  air  is  interesting  and  healthy ;  every  day  for 
a  month  I  have  seen  the  sunrise.   .   .  . 


To  HIS  Sister. 


Irkutsk, 

June  6,  1890. 


Greetings  to  you,  dear  mother,  Ivan,  Masha  and 
Misha,  and  all  of  you ! 

In  my  last  long  letter  I  wrote  to  you  that  the 
mountains  near  Krasnoyarsk  are  like  the  Donets 
Ridge,  but  that's  not  true;  when  I  looked  at  them 
from  the  street  I  saw  they  were  like  high  walls 
surrounding  the  city,  and  I  was  vividly  reminded  of 
the  Caucasus.  And  when  towards  evening  I  left  the 
town  and  was  crossing  the  Yenissey,  I  saw  on  the 
other  bank  mountains  that  were  exactlv  like  the 
Caucasus,  as  misty  and  dreamy.  The  Yenissey  is  a 
broad,  swift,  winding  river,  beautiful,  finer  than  the 
Volga.  And  the  ferry  across  it  is  wonderful,  in- 
geniously constructed,  moving  against  the  current; 
I  will  tell  you  when  I  am  home  about  the  construction 
of  it.  And  so  the  mountains  and  the  Yenissey  are  the 
first  things  original  and  new  that  I  have  met  in 
Siberia.  The  mountains  and  the  Yenissev  have  given 
me  sensations  which  have  made  up  to  me  a  hundred- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  189 

fold  for  all  the  trials  and  troubles  of  the  journey,  and 
which  have  made  me  call  Levitan  a  fool  for  being  so 
stupid  as  not  to  come  with  me. 

The  Taiga  stretches  unbroken  from  Krasnoyarsk 
to  Irkutsk.  The  trees  are  not  bigger  than  in  Sokol- 
niki,  but  not  one  driver  knows  how  far  it  goes.  There 
is  no  end  to  be  seen  to  it.  It  stretches  for  hundreds 
of  versts.  No  one  knows  who  or  what  is  in  the  Taiga, 
and  it  only  happens  in  winter  that  people  come 
through  the  Taiga  from  the  far  north  with  reindeer 
for  bread.  When  you  get  to  the  top  of  a  mountain 
and  look  down,  you  see  a  mountain  before  you,  then, 
another,  mountains  at  the  sides  too — and  all  thickly 
covered  with  forest.  It  makes  one  feel  almost 
frightened.  That's  the  second  thing  original  and 
new. 

From  Krasnoyarsk  it  began  to  be  hot  and  dusty. 
The  heat  was  terrible.  My  sheepskin  and  cap  lie 
buried  away.  The  dust  is  in  my  mouth,  in  my  nose, 
down  my  neck — tfoo !  We  were  approaching  Irkutsk 
— we  had  to  cross  the  Angara  by  ferry.  As  though- 
to  mock  us  a  high  wind  sprang  up.  My  military 
companions  and  I,  after  dreaming  for  ten  days  of  a 
bath,  dinner,  and  sleep,  stood  on  the  bank  and  turned 
pale  at  the  thought  that  we  should  have  to  spend  the 
night  not  at  Irkutsk,  but  in  the  village.  The  ferry 
could  not  succeed  in  reaching  the  bank.  We  stood 
an  hour,  a  second,  and — oh  Heavens! — the  ferry 
made  an  effort  and  reached  the  bank.  Bravo,  we 
shall  have  a  bath,  we  shall  have  supper  and  sleep! 
Oh,  how  sweet  to  steam  oneself,  to  eat,  to  sleep ! 

Irkutsk  is  a  fine  town.  Quite  a  cultured  town.. 
There  is  a  theatre,  a  museum,  a  town  garden  with  a 
band,  a  good  hotel.   ...     No  hideous  fences,  no  ab- 


190  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

surd  shop-signs,  and  no  waste  places  with  warming 
placards.  There  is  a  tavern  called  "Taganrog"; 
sugar  costs  twenty-four  kopecks  a  pound,  pine  kernels 
six  kopecks  a  pound. 

****** 

I  am  quite  well.  My  money  is  safe.  I  am  saving 
up  my  coffee  for  Sahalin.  I  have  splendid  tea  here, 
after  which  I  am  aware  of  an  agreeable  excitement. 
I  see  Chinamen.  They  are  a  good-natured  and  in- 
telligent people.  At  the  Siberian  bank  they  gave  me 
money  at  once,  received  me  cordially,  regaled  me  with 
cigarettes,  and  invited  me  to  their  summer  villa. 
There  is  a  magnificent  confectioner's  but  everything 
is  fiendishly  dear.     The  pavements  are  of  wood. 

Last  night  I  drove  with  the  officers  about  the  town. 
We  heard  someone  cry  "help"  six  times.  It  must 
have  been  someone  being  murdered.  We  went  to 
look,  but  could  not  find  anyone. 

The  cabs  in  Irkutsk  have  springs.  It  is  a  better 
town  than  Ekaterinburg  or  Tomsk.  Quite  Euro- 
pean. 

Have  a  Mass  celebrated  on  June  17th,*  and  keep 
the  29tht  as  festively  as  you  can;  I  shall  be  with  you 
in  thought  and  you  must  drink  my  health. 

****** 

Everything  I  have  is  crumpled,  dirty,  torn!  I 
look  like  a  pickpocket. 

I  shall  not  bring  you  any  furs  most  likely.  I  do  not 
know  where  they  are  sold,  and  I  am  too  lazy  to  ask. 

One  must  take  at  least  two  big  pillows  for  a  journey 
and  dark  pillow  cases  are  essential. 

*  The  anniversary  of  the  death  of  his  brother  Nikolay. 
t  His  father's  name-day. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  191 

What  is  Ivan  doing?  Where  has  he  been?  Has 
he  been  to  the  south?  I  am  going  from  Irkutsk  to 
Baikal.  My  companions  are  preparing  for  sea-sick- 
ness. 

My  big  boots  have  grown  looser  with  wearing,  and 
don't  hurt  my  heels  now. 

I  have  ordered  buckwheat  porridge  for  to-morrow. 
On  the  journey  here  I  thought  of  curds  and  began 
having  them  with  milk  at  the  stations. 

Did  you  get  my  postcards  from  the  little  towns? 
Keep  them:  I  shall  be  able  to  judge  from  them  how 
long  the  post  takes.     The  post  here  is  in  no  hurry. 

Irkutsk, 

June  7,  1890. 

.  .  .  The  Steamer  from  Sryetensk  leaves  on  June 
20th.  Good  Christians,  what  am  I  to  do  till  the 
20th?  How  am  I  to  dispose  of  myself?  The 
journey  to  Sryetensk  will  only  take  five  or  six  days. 
I  have  greatly  altered  the  route  of  my  journey.  From 
Habarovsk  (look  at  the  map*)  I  am  going  not  to 
Nikolaevsk,  but  by  the  Ussuri  to  Vladivostok,  and 
from  there  to  Sahalin.  I  must  have  a  look  at  the 
Ussuri  region.  At  Vladivostok  I  shall  bathe  in  the 
sea  and  eat  oysters. 

It  was  cold  till  I  reached  Kansk;  from  Kansk  (see 
map)  I  began  to  go  down  to  the  south.  Everything 
is  as  green  as  with  you,  even  the  oaks  are  out.  The 
birches  here  are  darker  than  in  Russia,  the  green  is 
not  so  sentimental.  There  are  masses  of  the  Russian 
white  service-tree,  which  here  takes  the  place  of  both 
the  lilac  and  the  cherry.     They  say  they  make  an 

*  Chekhov's  family  had,  during  his  absence,  a  map  of  Siberia 
on  the  wall  by  means  of  which  they  followed  his  progress. 


192  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

excellent  jam  from  the  service-tree.  I  tasted  some  of 
the  fruit  pickled;  it  was  not  bad. 

Two  lieutenants  and  an  army  doctor  are  travelling 
with  me.  They  have  received  their  travelling  ex- 
penses three  times  over,  but  have  spent  all  the  money, 
though  they  are  travelling  in  one  carriage.  They 
are  sitting  without  a  farthing,  waiting  for  the  pay  de- 
partment to  send  them  some  money.  They  are  nice 
fellows.  They  have  had  from  fifteen  hundred  to 
two  thousand  roubles  each  for  travelling  expenses, 
and  the  journey  will  cost  them  next  to  nothing  (ex- 
cluding, of  course,  the  cost  of  the  stopping  places). 
They  do  nothing  but  pitch  into  everybody  at  hotels 
and  stations  so  that  people  are  positively  afraid  to 
present  their  bills.  In  their  company  I  pay  less  than 
usual.  .  .  .  To-day  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  I 
saw  a  Siberian  cat.  It  has  long  soft  fur,  and  a  gentle 
disposition. 

...  I  felt  homesick  and  sent  you  a  telegram  to- 
day asking  you  to  subscribe  together  and  send  me  a 
long  telegram.  It  would  be  nothing  to  all  of  you,  in- 
habitants of  Luka,  to  fling  away  five  roubles. 

.  .  .  With  whom  is  Mishka  in  love?  To  what 
happy  woman  is  Ivanenko  telling  stories  of  his 
uncle?  ...  I  must  be  in  love  with  Jamais  as  I 
dreamed  of  her  yesterday.  In  comparison  with  all 
the  "jeunes  Siberiennes"  with  their  Yakut-Buriat 
physiognomies,  who  do  not  know  how  to  dress,  to 
sing,  and  to  laugh,  our  Jamais^  Drishka,  and  Gund- 
assiha  are  simply  queens.  The  Siberian  girls  and 
women  are  like  frozen  fish;  one  would  have  to  be  a 
walrus  or  a  seal  to  get  up  a  flirtation  with  them. 

I  am  tired  of  my  companions.  It  is  much  nicer 
travelling  alone.     I  like  silence  better  than  anything 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  193 

on  the  journey  and  my  companions  talk  and  sing 
without  stopping,  and  they  talk  of  nothing  but 
women.  They  borrowed  a  hundred  and  thirty-six 
roubles  from  me  till  to-morrow  and  have  already 
spent  it.     They  are  regular  sieves. 

.  .  .  The  stations  are  sometimes  thirty  to  thirty- 
five  versts  apart.  You  drive  by  night,  you  drive  and 
drive,  till  you  feel  silly  and  light-headed,  and  if  you 
venture  to  ask  the  driver  how  far  it  is  to  the  next 
station,  he  will  never  say  less  than  seventeen  versts. 
That's  particularly  agonizing  when  you  have  to  go  at 
a  walking  pace  along  a  muddy  road  full  of  holes,  and 
when  you  are  thirsty.  I  have  learned  to  do  without 
sleep;  I  don't  mind  a  bit  when  they  wake  me.  As 
a  rule  one  does  not  sleep  for  one  day  and  night,  and 
then  the  next  day  at  dinner-time  there  is  a  strained 
feeling  in  one's  eyelids;  in  the  evening  and  in  the 
night  towards  daybreak  of  the  third  day,  one  dozes 
in  the  chaise  and  sometimes  falls  asleep  for  a  minute 
as  one  sits ;  at  dinner  and  after  dinner  at  the  stations, 
while  the  horses  are  being  harnessed,  one  lolls  on  the 
sofa,  and  the  real  torture  only  begins  at  night.  In 
the  evening,  after  drinking  five  glasses  of  tea,  one's 
face  begins  to  burn,  one's  body  feels  limp  all  over  and 
longs  to  bend  backwards;  one's  eyes  close,  one's  feet 
ache  in  one's  big  boots,  one's  brain  is  in  a  tangle.  If 
I  allow  myself  to  put  up  for  the  night  I  fall  into  a  dead 
sleep  at  once;  if  I  have  strength  of  will  to  go  on,  I 
drop  asleep  in  the  chaise,  however  violent  the  jolting 
may  be;  at  the  stations  the  drivers  wake  one  up,  as  one 
has  to  get  out  of  the  chaise  and  pay  for  the  journey. 
They  wake  one  not  so  much  by  shouting  and  tugging 
at  one's  sleeve,  as  by  the  stink  of  garlic  that  issues 
from  their  lips;  they  smell  of  garlic  and  onion  till 


194  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

they  make  me  sick.  I  only  learned  to  sleep  in  the 
chaise  after  Krasnoyarsk.  On  the  way  to  Irkutsk  I 
slept  for  fifty-eight  versts,  and  was  only  once  woken 
up.  But  the  sleep  one  gets  as  one  drives  makes  one 
feel  no  better.  It's  not  real  sleep,  but  a  sort  of  un- 
conscious condition,  after  which  one's  head  is  mud- 
dled and  there's  a  bad  taste  in  one's  mouth. 

Chinamen  are  like  those  decrepit  old  gentlemen 
dear  Nikolay*  used  to  like  drawing.  Some  of  them 
have  splendid  pigtails. 

The  police  came  to  see  me  at  Tomsk.  Towards 
eleven  o'clock  the  waiter  suddenly  announced  to  me 
that  the  assistant  police-master  wanted  to  see  me. 
What  was  this  for?  Could  it  be  pohtics?  Could 
they  suspect  me  of  being  a  Voltairian?  I  said  to  the 
waiter,  "Ask  him  in."  A  gentleman  with  long 
moustaches  walks  in  and  introduces  himself.  It  ap- 
pears he  is  devoted  to  literature,  writes  himself,  and 
has  come  to  me  in  my  hotel  room  as  though  to 
Mahomed  at  Mecca  to  worship.  I'll  tell  you  why 
I  thought  of  him.  Late  in  the  autumn  he  is  going  to 
Petersburg,  and  I  have  foisted  my  trunk  upon  him 
and  asked  him  to  leave  it  at  the  Novoye  Vremya  office. 
You  might  keep  that  in  mind  in  case  any  one  of  us 
or  our  friends  goes  to  Petersburg. 

You  might,  by  the  way,  look  out  for  a  place  in  the 
country.  When  I  get  back  to  Russia  I  shall  take 
five  years'  rest — that  is,  stay  in  one  place  and  twiddle 
my  thumbs.  A  place  in  the  country  will  come  in 
very  handy.  I  think  the  money  will  be  found,  for 
things  don't  look  bad.  If  I  work  off  the  money  I 
have  had  in  advance  (half  of  it  is  worked  off  already) 
I  shall  certainly  borrow  two  or  three  thousand  in  the 

*  Chekhov's  brother. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  195 

spring,  to  be  paid  off  over  a  period  of  five  years. 
That  will  not  be  against  my  conscience,  as  I  have 
already  let  the  publishing  department  of  the  Novoye 
Vremya  make  two  or  three  thousand  out  of  my  books, 
and  I  shall  let  them  make  more. 

I  think  I  shall  not  begin  on  any  serious  work  till  I 
am  five  and  thirty.  ...  I  want  to  try  personal 
life,  of  which  I  have  had  some  before,  but  have  not 
noticed  it  owing  to  various  circumstances. 

To-day  I  rubbed  my  leather  coat  with  grease.  It's 
a  splendid  coat.  It  has  saved  me  from  catching 
cold.  My  sheepskin  is  a  capital  thing,  too:  it  serves 
me  as  a  coat  and  a  mattress,  both.  One  is  as  warm 
in  it  as  on  a  stove.  It's  wretched  without  pillows. 
Hay  does  not  take  the  place  of  them,  and  with  the 
continual  friction  there's  a  lot  of  dust  from  it  which 
tickles  one's  face  and  prevents  one  from  dozing.  I 
haven't  a  single  sheet.  That's  horrid  too.  And  I 
ought  to  have  taken  some  more  trousers.  The  more 
luggage  one  has  the  better — there's  less  jolting  and 
more  comfort. 

Good-bye,  though.  I  have  got  nothing  more  to 
write  about.     My  greetings  to  all. 

Station  Listvenitchnaya, 
ON  Lake  Baikal, 

June  13. 

I  am  having  an  idiotic  time.  On  the  evening  of 
the  11th  of  June,  the  day  before  yesterday,  we  set 
off  from  Irkutsk,  in  the  fond  hope  of  catching  the 
Baikal  steamer,  which  leaves  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  From  Irkutsk  to  Baikal  there  are  only 
three  stations.  At  the  first  station  they  informed  us 
that  all  the  horses  were  exhausted  and  that  it  was 


196  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

therefore  impossible  to  go.  We  had  to  put  up  for 
the  night.  Yesterday  morning  we  set  off  from  that 
station,  and  by  midday  we  reached  Baikal.  We  went 
to  the  harbour,  and  in  answer  to  our  inquiries  were 
told  that  the  steamer  did  not  go  till  Friday  the 
fifteenth.  This  meant  that  we  should  have  to  sit  on 
the  bank  and  look  at  the  water  and  wait.  As  there 
is  nothing  that  does  not  end  in  time,  I  have  no  ob- 
jection to  waiting,  and  always  wait  patiently;  but  the 
point  is  the  steamer  leaves  Sryetensk  on  the  20th 
and  sails  down  the  Amur:  if  we  don't  catch  it  we 
must  wait  for  the  next  steamer,  which  does  not  go  till 
the  30th.  Merciful  Heavens,  when  shall  I  get  to 
Sahalin ! 

We  drove  to  Baikal  along  the  bank  of  the  An- 
gara, which  rises  out  of  Lake  Baikal  and  flows  into 
the  Yenissey.  Look  at  the  map.  The  banks  are 
picturesque.  Mountains  and  mountains,  and  dense 
forests  on  the  mountains.  The  weather  was  exquisite 
still,  sunny  and  warm;  as  I  drove  I  felt  I  was  excep- 
tionally well;  I  felt  so  happy  that  I  cannot  describe 
it.  It  was  perhaps  the  contrast  after  the  stay  at 
Irkutsk,  and  because  the  scenery  on  the  Angara  is 
like  Switzerland.  It  is  something  new  and  original. 
We  drove  along  the  river  bank,  came  to  the  mouth  of 
the  river,  and  turned  to  the  left ;  then  we  came  upon 
the  bank  of  Lake  Baikal,  which  in  Siberia  is  called  the 
sea.  It  is  like  a  mirror.  The  other  side,  of  course, 
is  out  of  sight;  it  is  ninety  versts  away.  The  banks 
are  high,  steep,  stony,  and  covered  with  forest,  to 
right  and  to  left  there  are  promontories  which  jut 
into  the  sea  like  Au-dag  or  the  Tohtebel  at  Feodosia. 
It's  like  the  Crimea.  The  station  of  Listvenitchnaya 
lies  at  the  water's  edge,  and  is  strikingly  like  Yalta: 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  197 

if  the  houses  were  white  it  would  be  exactly  like 
Yalta.  Only  there  are  no  buildings  on  the  moun- 
tains, as  they  are  too  overhanging  and  it  is  impossible 
to  build  on  them. 

We  have  taken  a  little  barn  of  a  lodging  that  re- 
minds one  of  any  of  the  Kraskovsky  summer  villas. 
Just  outside  the  window,  two  or  three  yards  from 
the  wall,  is  Lake  Baikal.  We  pay  a  rouble  a  day. 
The  mountains,  the  forests,  the  mirror-like  Baikal  are 
all  poisoned  for  me  by  the  thought  that  we  shall  have 
to  stay  here  till  the  fifteenth.  What  are  we  to  do 
here?  What  is  more,  we  don't  know  what  there  is 
for  us  to  eat.  The  inhabitants  feed  upon  nothing 
but  garlic.  There  is  neither  meat  nor  fish.  They 
have  given  us  no  milk,  but  have  promised  it.  For  a 
little  white  loaf  they  demanded  sixteen  kopecks.  I 
bought  some  buckwheat  and  a  piece  of  smoked  pork, 
and  asked  them  to  make  a  thin  porridge  of  it:  it  was 
not  nice,  but  there  was  nothing  to  be  done,  I  had  to 
eat  it.  All  the  evening  we  hunted  about  the  village 
to  find  someone  who  w^ould  sell  us  a  hen,  and  found 
no  one.  .  .  .  But  there  is  vodka.  The  Russian  is  a 
great  pig.  If  you  ask  him  why  he  doesn't  eat  meat 
and  fish  he  justifies  himself  by  the  absence  of  trans- 
port, ways  and  communications,  and  so  on,  and  yet 
vodka  is  to  be  found  in  the  remotest  villages  and  as 
much  of  it  as  you  please.  And  yet  one  would  have 
supposed  that  it  would  have  been  much  easier  to 
obtain  meat  and  fish  than  vodka,  which  is  more  ex- 
pensive and  more  difficult  to  transport.  .  .  .  Yes, 
drinking  vodka  must  be  much  more  interesting  than 
fishing  in  Lake  Baikal  or  rearing  cattle. 

At  midnight  a  little  steamer  arrived;  we  went  to 
look  at  it,  and  seized  the  opportunity  to  ask  if  there 


198  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

was  anything  to  eat.  We  were  told  that  to-morrow 
we  should  be  able  to  get  dinner,  but  that  now  it  was 
late,  the  kitchen  fire  was  out,  and  so  on.  We  thanked 
them  for  "to-morrow" — it  was  something  to  look  for- 
ward to  anyway!  But  alas!  the  captain  came  in  and 
told  us  that  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  steamer 
was  setting  off  for  Kultuk.  We  thanked  him.  In 
the  refreshment  bar,  where  there  was  not  room  to  turn 
round,  we  drank  a  bottle  of  sour  beer  (thirty-five 
kopecks) ,  and  saw  on  a  plate  some  amber  beads — it 
was  salmon  caviare.  We  returned  home,  and  to 
sleep.  I  am  sick  of  sleeping.  Every  day  one  has  to 
put  down  one's  sheepskin  with  the  wool  upwards, 
under  one's  head  one  puts  a  folded  greatcoat  and  a 
pillow,  and  one  sleeps  on  this  heap  in  one's  waistcoat 
and  trousers.   .   .   .      Civilization,  where  art  thou? 

To-day  there  is  rain  and  Lake  Baikal  is  plunged 
in  mist,  "Interesting,"  Semaskho  would  say.  It's 
dull.  One  ought  to  sit  down  and  write,  but  one  can 
never  work  in  bad  weather.  One  has  a  foreboding  of 
merciless  boredom;  if  I  were  alone  I  should  not  mind 
but  there  are  two  lieutenants  and  an  army  doctor 
with  me,  who  are  fond  of  talking  and  arguing.  They 
don't  understand  much  but  they  talk  about  every- 
thing. One  of  the  lieutenants,  moreover,  is  a  bit  of 
a  Hlestakov  and  a  braggart.  When  one  is  travelling 
one  absolutely  must  be  alone.  To  sit  in  a  chaise  or 
in  a  room  alone  with  one's  thoughts  is  much  more 
interesting  than  being  with  people. 

^  46  -Jfr  45-  *  * 

Congratulate  me:  I  sold  my  own  carriage  at  Irkutsk. 
How  much  I  gained  on  it  I  won't  say,  or  mother  would 
fall  into  a  faint  and  not  sleep  for  five  nights. 

Your  Homo  Sachaliensis, 

A.  Chekhov. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  199 

To  HIS  Mother. 

Steamer  "Yermak," 

June  20,  1890. 

Greeting,  dear  ones  at  home! 

At  last  I  can  take  off  my  heavy  muddy  boots,  my 
shabby  breeches,  and  my  blue  shirt  which  is  shiny 
with  dust  and  sweat;  I  can  wash  and  dress  like  a 
human  being.  I  am  not  sitting  in  a  chaise  but  in 
a  first-class  cabin  of  the  steamer  Yermak.  This 
change  took  place  ten  days  ago,  and  this  is  how  it 
happened.  I  wrote  to  you  from  Listvenitchnaya  that 
I  was  late  for  the  Baikal  steamer,  that  I  had  to  cross 
Lake  Baikal  on  Friday  instead  of  Tuesday,  and  that 
owing  to  this  I  should  only  be  able  to  catch  the  Amur 
steamer  on  the  30th.  But  fate  is  capricious,  and 
often  plays  us  tricks  we  do  not  expect.  On  Thurs- 
day morning  I  went  out  for  a  walk  on  the  shores  of 
Lake  Baikal;  behold — the  funnel  of  one  of  the  lit- 
tle steamers  is  smoking.  I  inquire  where  the  steamer 
is  going.  They  tell  me,  "Across  the  sea"  to 
Klyuevo ;  some  merchant  had  hired  it  to  take  his  wag- 
gons of  goods  across  the  Lake.  We,  too,  wanted 
to  cross  "the  sea"  and  to  go  to  Boyarskaya  station. 
I  inquire  how  many  versts  from  Klyuevo  to  Boyars- 
kaya. They  tell  me  twenty-seven.  I  run  back  to  my 
companions  and  beg  them  to  take  the  risk  of  going 
to  Klyuevo.  I  say  the  "risk"  because,  going  to 
Klyuevo  where  there  is  nothing  but  a  harbour  and  a 
watchman's  hut,  we  ran  the  risk  of  not  finding  horses, 
having  to  stay  on  at  Klyuevo,  and  being  late  for 
Friday's  steamer,  which  for  us  would  be  worse  than 
Igor's  death,  as  we  should  have  to  wait  till  Tuesday. 
My  companions  consented.     We  gathered  together 


200  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

our  belongings,  with  cheerful  legs  stepped  on  to  the 
steamer  and  straight  to  the  refreshment  bar:  soup, 
for  the  love  of  God !  Half  my  kingdom  for  a  plate 
of  soup !  The  refreshment  bar  was  very  nasty  and 
cramped;  but  the  cook,  Grigory  Ivanitch,  who  had 
been  a  house-serf  at  Voronezh,  turned  out  to  be  at  the 
tip-top  of  his  profession.  He  fed  us  magnificently. 
The  weather  was  still  and  sunny.  The  water  of 
Lake  Baikal  is  the  colour  of  turquoise,  more  trans- 
parent than  the  Black  Sea.  They  say  that  in  deep 
places  you  can  see  the  bottom  over  a  verst  below; 
and  I  myself  have  seen  to  such  a  depth,  with  rocks 
and  mountains  plunged  in  the  turquoise-blue,  that 
it  sent  a  shiver  all  over  me.  Our  journey  over 
Lake  Baikal  was  wonderful.  I  shall  never  forget  it 
as  long  as  I  live.  But  I  will  tell  you  what  was  not 
nice.  We  travelled  third  class,  and  the  whole  deck 
was  occupied  by  the  waggon-horses,  which  were  wild 
as  mad  things.  These  horses  gave  a  special  character 
to  our  crossing:  it  seemed  as  though  we  were  in  a 
brigand's  steamer.  At  Klyuevo  the  watchman  under- 
took to  convey  our  luggage  to  the  station;  he  drove 
the  cart  while  we  walked  along  the  very  picturesque 
shore.  Levitan  was  an  ass  not  to  come  with  me. 
The  way  was  through  woods :  on  the  right,  woods  run- 
ning uphill;  on  the  left,  woods  running  down  to  the 
Lake.  Such  ravines,  such  crags !  The  colouring  of 
Lake  Baikal  is  soft  and  warm.  It  was,  by  the  way, 
very  warm.  After  walking  eight  versts  we  reached 
the  station  of  Myskan,  where  a  Kyahtan  official,  who 
was  also  on  his  travels,  regaled  us  with  excellent  tea, 
and  where  we  got  the  horses  for  Boyarskaya;  and  so 
we  set  off  on  Thursday  instead  of  Friday;  what  is 
more,  we  got  twenty-four  hours  in  advance  of  the  post,, 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  201 

which  usually  takes  all  the  horses  at  the  station.  We 
began  driving  as  fast  as  we  could,  cherishing  a  faint 
hope  of  reaching  Sryetensk  by  the  20th.  I  will  tell 
you  when  we  meet  about  my  journey  along  the  bank  of 
the  Selenga  and  across  Transbaikalia.  Now  I  will 
only  say  that  Selenga  is  one  continuous  loneliness,  and 
in  Transbaikalia  I  found  everything  I  wanted:  the 
Caucasus,  and  the  valley  of  the  Psyol,  and  the  Zveni- 
gorod  district,  and  the  Don.  By  day  you  gallop 
through  the  Caucasus,  at  night  along  the  steppe  of  the 
Don ;  in  the  morning,  rousing  yourself  from  slumber, 
behold  the  province  of  Poltava — and  so  for  the  whole 
thousand  versts.  Verhneudinsk  is  a  nice  little  town. 
Tchita  is  a  wretched  place,  in  the  style  of  Sumy.  I 
need  hardly  say  that  we  had  no  time  to  think  of 
sleep  or  dinner.  One  gallops  on  thinking  of  nothing 
but  the  chance  that  at  the  next  station  we  might  not 
get  horses,  and  might  be  kept  five  or  six  hours.  We 
did  two  hundred  versts  in  twenty-four  hours — one 
can't  do  more  than  that  in  the  summer.  We  were 
stupefied.  The  heat  was  fearful  by  day,  while  at 
night  it  was  so  cold  that  I  had  to  put  on  my  leather 
coat  over  my  cloth  one.  One  night  I  even  wore  my 
sheepskin.  Well,  we  drove  on  and  on,  and  reached 
Sryetensk  this  morning  just  an  hour  before  the 
steamer  left,  giving  the  drivers  from  the  last  two  sta- 
tions a  rouble  each  for  themselves. 

And  so  my  horse-journey  is  over.  It  has  lasted 
two  months  (I  set  out  on  the  21st  of  April).  If  we 
exclude  the  time  spent  on  the  railway  and  the  steamer, 
the  three  days  spent  in  Ekaterinburg,  the  week  in 
Tomsk,  the  day  in  Krasnoyarsk,  the  week  in  Irkutsk, 
the  two  days  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Baikal,  and  the 
days  wasted  in  waiting  for  boats  to  cross  the  floods, 


202  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

you  can  judge  of  the  rate  at  which  I  have  driven. 
My  journey  has  been  most  successful,  I  wish  nothing 
better  for  anyone.  I  have  not  once  been  ill,  and  of 
the  mass  of  things  I  had  with  me  I  have  lost  nothing 
but  a  penknife,  the  strap  off  my  trunk,  and  a  little 
jar  of  carbolic  ointment.  My  money  is  safe.  It  is 
not  often  that  anyone  succeeds  in  travelling  a  thou- 
sand versts  so  well. 

I  have  grown  so  used  to  driving  that  now  I  don't 
feel  like  myself,  and  cannot  believe  that  I  am  not  in 
a  chaise  and  that  I  don't  hear  the  rattling  and  the 
jingling  of  the  bells.  It  seems  strange  that  when  I 
go  to  bed  I  can  stretch  out  my  legs  full  length,  and 
that  my  face  is  not  covered  with  dust.  But  what  is 
stranger  still  is  that  the  bottle  of  brandy  Kuvshinni- 
kov  gave  me  has  not  been  broken,  and  that  the 
brandy  is  still  in  it,  every  drop  of  it.  I  have  vowed 
not  to  uncork  it  except  on  the  shore  of  the  Pacific. 

I  am  sailing  down  the  Shilka,  which  runs  into  the 
Amur  at  the  Pokrovskaya  Stanitsa.  The  river  is  not 
broader  than  the  Psyol,  it  is  even  narrower.  The 
shores  are  stony:  there  are  crags  and  forests.  It  is 
absolutely  wild.  .  .  .  We  tack  about  to  avoid 
foundering  on  a  sandbank,  or  running  our  helm  into 
the  banks:  steamers  and  barges  often  do  so  in  the 
rapids.  It's  stifling.  We  have  just  stopped  at  Ust- 
Kara,  where  we  have  landed  five  or  six  convicts. 
There  are  mines  here  and  a  convict  prison. 

Yesterday  we  were  at  Nertchinsk.  The  little  town 
is  nothing  to  boast  of,  but  one  could  live  there. 

And  how  are  you,  messieurs  and  mesdames?  I 
know  positively  nothing  about  you.  You  might  sub- 
scribe twopence  each  and  send  me  a  full  telegram. 

The  steamer  will  stay  the  night  at  Gorbitsa.     The 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  203 

nights  here  are  foggy,  sailing  is  dangerous.     I  shall 

send  off  this  letter  at  Gorbitsa. 

...   I  am  going  first  class  because  my  companions 

are  in  the  second.      I  have  got  away  from  them.     We 

have  driven  together  (three  in  one  chaise),  we  have 

slept  together  and  are  sick  of  each  other,  especially 

I  of  them. 

4f  *  *  *  *  * 

My  handwriting  is  very  bad,  shaky.  That  is  be- 
cause the  steamer  rocks.     It's  difficult  to  write. 

I  broke  off  here.  I  went  to  my  lieutenants  and  had 
tea.  They  have  both  had  a  long  sleep  and  were  in 
a  very  cordial  mood.  One  of  them,  Lieutenant  N. 
(the  surname  jars  upon  my  ear),  is  in  the  infantry; 
he  is  a  tall,  well-fed,  loud-voiced  Courlander,  a  great 
braggart  and  Hlestakov,  who  sings  songs  from  every 
opera,  but  has  no  more  ear  than  a  smoked  herring, 
an  unlucky  fellow  who  has  squandered  all  the  money 
for  his  travelling  expenses,  knows  all  Mickiewicz  by 
heart,  is  ill-bred,  far  too  unreserved,  and  babbles  till 
it  makes  you  sick.  Like  me,  he  is  fond  of  talking 
about  his  uncles  and  aunts.  The  other  lieutenant, 
M.,  a  geographer,  is  a  quiet,  modest,  thoroughly  well- 
educated  fellow.  If  it  were  not  for  N.,  I  could  travel 
with  the  other  for  a  million  versts  without  being 
bored.  But  with  N.,  who  intrudes  into  every  con- 
versation, the  other  bores  me  too.  ...  I  believe 
we  are  reaching  Gorbitsa. 

To-morrow  I  will  make  up  the  form  of  a  telegram 
which  you  must  send  me  to  Sahalin.  I  will  try  to 
put  all  I  want  to  know  in  thirty  words,  and  you  must 
try  and  keep  strictly  to  the  pattern. 

The  gad-flies  bite. 


204  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

To  N.  A.  Leikin. 

GORBITSA, 
June  20,  1890. 

Greetings,  dear  Nikolay  Alexandrovitch ! 

I  wrote  you  this  as  I  approached  Gorbitsa,  one  of 
the  Cossack  settlements  on  the  banks  of  the  Shilka, 
a  tributary  of  the  Amur.  This  is  where  I  have  got  to. 
I  am  saiHng  down  the  Amur. 

I  sent  you  a  letter  from  Irkutsk.  Did  you  get  it? 
Since  then  more  than  a  week  has  passed,  in  the  course 
of  which  I  have  crossed  Lake  Baikal  and  driven 
through  Transbaikalia.  Lake  Baikal  is  wonderful, 
and  the  Siberians  may  well  call  it  a  sea  instead  of 
a  lake.  The  water  is  extraordinarily  transparent,  so 
that  one  can  see  through  it  as  through  air ;  the  colour 
is  a  soft  turquoise  very  agreeable  to  the  eye.  The 
banks  are  mountainous,  and  covered  with  forests;  it 
is  all  impenetrable  wildness  without  a  break  any- 
where. 

There  are  great  numbers  of  bears,  wild  goats,  and 
wild  creatures  of  all  sorts,  who  spend  their  time  living 
in  the  Taiga  and  eating  one  another.  I  spent  two 
days  and  nights  on  the  shore  of  Lake  Baikal. 

It  was  still  and  hot  when  I  was  sailing. 

Transbaikalia  is  splendid.  It  is  a  mixture  of 
Switzerland,  the  Don,  and  Finland. 

I  have  driven  with  horses  more  than  four  thousand 
versts.  My  journey  was  entirely  successful.  I  was 
in  good  health  all  the  time,  and  lost  nothing  of  my 
luggage  but  a  penknife.  I  can  wish  no  one  a  better 
journey.  The  journey  is  absolutely  free  from  danger, 
and  all  the  tales  of  escaped  convicts,  of  night  attacks, 
and  so  on  are  nothing  but  legends,  traditions  of  the 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  205 

remote  past.     A  revolver  is  an  entirely  superfluous 
article.     Now  I  am  sitting  in  a  first-class  cabin,  and 
feel  as  though  I  were  in  Europe.     I  feel  in  the  mood 
one  is  in  after  passing  an  examination. 
A  whistle! — that's  Gorbitsa. 

****** 

The  banks  of  the  Shilka  are  picturesque  like  stage 
scenes  but,  alas !  there  is  something  oppressive  in  this 
complete  absence  of  human  beings.  It  is  like  a  cage 
without  a  bird. 


To  HIS  Sister. 

June  21,  1890.     6  o'clock  in  the  evening,  not  far 
from  the  Stanitsa  Pokrovskaya. 

We  ran  upon  a  rock,  stove  a  hole  in  the  steamer, 
and  are  now  undergoing  repairs.  We  are  aground  on 
a  sandbank  and  pumping  out  water.  On  the  left  is 
the  Russian  bank,  on  the  right  the  Chinese.  If  I 
were  back  at  home  now  I  should  have  the  right  to 
boast:  "Though  I  have  not  been  in  China  I  have 
seen  China  only  twenty  feet  off."  We  are  to  stay  the 
night  in  Pokrovskaya.  We  shall  make  up  a  party  to 
see  the  place. 

If  I  were  a  millionaire  I  should  certainly  have  a 
steamer  of  my  own  on  the  Amur.  It  is  a  fine,  in- 
teresting country.  I  advise  Yegor  Mihailovitch  not 
to  go  to  Tuapse  but  here;  there  are  here  by  the  way 
neither  tarantulas  nor  phalangas.  On  the  Chinese 
side  there  is  a  sentry  post — a  small  hut;  sacks  of 
flour  are  piled  up  on  the  bank,  ragged  Chinamen  are 
dragging  the  sacks  on  barrows  to  the  hut.  And  be- 
yond is  the  dense,  endless  forest. 


206  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Some  schoolgirls  are  travelling  with  us  from  Ir- 
kutsk— Russian  faces,  but  not  good-looking. 

POKROVSKAYA  StANITSA, 

June  23,  1890. 

I  have  told  you  already  we  are  aground  on  a  sand- 
bank. At  Ust-Stryelka,  where  the  Shilka  joins  the 
Argun  (see  map),  the  steamer  went  aground  in  two 
and  a  half  feet  of  water,  struck  a  rock,  and  stove  in 
several  holes  in  its  side  and,  the  hold  filling  with 
water,  the  steamer  sank  to  the  bottom.  They  began 
pumping  out  water  and  putting  on  patches;  a  naked 
sailor  crawled  into  the  hold,  stood  up  to  his  neck  in 
water,  and  tried  the  holes  with  his  heels.  Each  hole 
was  covered  on  the  inside  with  cloth  smeared  with 
grease:  they  lay  a  board  on  the  top,  and  stuck  a 
support  upon  the  latter  which  pressed  against  the 
ceiling  like  a  column.  Such  is  the  repairing.  They 
were  pumping  from  five  o'clock  in  the  evening  till 
night,  but  still  the  water  did  not  abate:  they  had  to 
put  off  the  work  till  morning.  In  the  morning  they 
discovered  some  more  holes,  and  began  patching  and 
pumping  again.  The  sailors  pump  while  we,  the 
general  public,  pace  up  and  down  the  decks,  criticize,  . 
eat,  drink,  and  sleep;  the  captain  and  his  mate  do 
the  same  as  the  general  public,  and  seem  in  no  hurry. 
On  the  right  is  the  Chinese  bank,  on  the  left  is  the 
stanitsa,  Pokrovskaya,  with  the  Cossacks  of  the 
Amur;  if  one  likes  one  can  stay  in  Russia,  if  one  likes 
one  can  go  into  China,  there  is  nothing  to  hinder  one. 
It  is  insufferably  hot  in  the  daytime,  so  that  one  has  to 
put  on  a  silk  shirt.  They  give  us  dinner  at  twelve 
o'clock,  supper  at  seven. 

Unluckily  the  steamer  Vyestnik  coming  the  other 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  207 

way  with  a  crowd  of  passengers  is  approaching  the 
stanitsa.  The  Vyestnik  cannot  go  on  either,  and 
both  steamers  stay  stock-still.  There  is  a  military 
band  on  the  Vyestnik,  consequently  there  has  been 
a  regular  festival.  All  yesterday  the  band  was  play- 
ing on  deck  to  the  entertainment  of  the  captain  and 
sailors,  and  consequently  to  the  delay  of  the  repair- 
ing. The  feminine  half  of  the  public  were  highly 
delighted;  a  band,  officers,  naval  men  ...  oh! 
The  schoolgirls  were  particularly  pleased.  'Yester- 
day evening  we  walked  about  the  Cossack  settlement, 
where  the  same  band,  hired  by  the  Cossacks,  was 
playing.  To-day  we  are  continuing  the  repairs. 
The  captain  promises  that  we  shall  start  after  din- 
ner, but  he  promises  it  listlessly,  gazing  away  into 
space — obviously  he  does  not  mean  it.  We  are  in 
no  haste.  When  I  asked  a  passenger,  "Whenever 
are  we  going  on?"  he  asked,  "Why,  aren't  you  all 
right  here!" 

And  that's  true.  Why  not  stay,  as  long  as  we  are 
not  bored? 

The  captain,  his  mate,  and  his  agent  are  the  acme 
of  politeness.  The  Chinese  in  the  third  class  are 
good-natured  and  funny.  Yesterday  a  Chinaman 
sat  on  the  deck  and  sang  something  very  mournful  in 
a  falsetto  voice;  as  he  did  so  his  profile  was  funnier 
than  any  caricature.  Everybody  looked  at  him  and 
laughed,  while  he  took  not  the  slightest  notice.  He 
sang  falsetto  and  then  began  singing  tenor.  My  God, 
what  a  voice!  It  was  like  the  bleat  of  a  sheep  or  a 
calf.  The  Chinese  remind  me  of  good-natured  tame 
animals,  their  pigtails  are  long  and  black  like  Natalya 
Mihailovna's.  Apropos  of  tame  animals,  there's  a 
tame  fox  cub  living  in  the  toilet-room.     It  sits  and 


208  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

looks  on  as  one  washes.     If  it  sees  no  one  for  a  long 
time  it  begins  to  whine. 

What  strange  conversations  one  hears!  They 
talk  of  nothing  but  gold,  the  mines,  the  Volunteer 
Fleet  and  Japan.  In  Pokrovskaya  all  the  peasants 
and  even  the  priests  mine  for  gold.  The  exiles  fol- 
low the  same  occupation  and  grow  rich  as  quickly  as 
they  grow  poor.  There  are  people  who  look  like 
artizans  and  who  never  drink  anything  but  cham- 
pagne, and  walk  to  the  tavern  on  red  baize  which  is 
laid  down  from  their  hut  to  the  tavern. 

****** 

The  Amur  country  is  exceedingly  interesting. 
Highly  original.  The  life  here  is  such  as  people  have 
no  conception  of  in  Europe.  It  reminds  me  of  Amer- 
ican stories.  The  shores  of  the  Amur  are  so  wild, 
original,  and  luxuriant  that  one  longs  to  live  there  all 
one's  life.  I  am  writing  these  last  few  lines  on  the 
25th  of  June.  The  steamer  rocks  and  prevents  my 
WTiting  properly.  We  are  moving  again.  I  have 
come  a  thousand  versts  down  the  Amur  already,  and 
have  seen  a  million  gorgeous  landscapes ;  I  feel  giddy 
with  ecstasy.  .  .  .  It's  marvellous  scenery,  and 
how^  hot!  What  warm  nights!  There  is  a  mist  in 
the  mornings  but  it  is  warm. 

I  look  through  an  opera-glass  at  the  shore  and  see 
a  prodigious  number  of  ducks,  geese,  grebes,  herons 
and  all  sorts  of  creatures  with  long  beaks.  This 
would  be  the  place  to  take  a  summer  villa  in!  At 
a  little  place  called  Reinov  a  goldminer  asked  me  to 
see  his  sick  wife.  As  I  was  leaving  him  he  thrust 
into  my  hands  a  roll  of  notes.  I  felt  ashamed.  I 
was  beginning  to  refuse  and  thrust  it  back,  saying 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  209 

that  I  was  very  rich  myself;  we  talked  together  for  a 
long  time  tndng  to  persuade  each  other,  and  yet  in  the 
end  fifteen  roubles  remained  in  my  hands.  Yester- 
day a  goldminer  with  the  face  of  Petya  Polevaev 
dined  in  my  cabin;  at  dinner  he  drank  champagne 
instead  of  water,  and  treated  us  to  it. 

The  villages  here  are  like  those  on  the  Don.  There 
is  a  difference  in  the  buildings  but  nothing  to  speak 
of.  The  inhabitants  don't  keep  the  fasts,  and  eat 
meat  even  in  Holy  Week;  the  girls  smoke  cigarettes, 
and  old  women  smoke  pipes — it  is  the  correct  thing. 
It's  strange  to  see  peasants  with  cigarettes!  And 
what  liberalism!      Oh,  what  liberalism! 

The  air  on  the  steamer  is  positively  red-hot  with 
the  talk  that  goes  on.  People  are  not  afraid  to  talk 
aloud  here.  There's  no  one  to  arrest  them  and  no- 
where to  exile  them  to,  so  you  can  be  as  liberal  as  you 
like.  The  people  for  the  most  part  are  independent, 
self-reliant,  and  logical.  If  there  is  anv  misunder- 
standing at  Ust-Kara,  where  the  convicts  work 
(among  them  many  politicals  who  don't  work) ,  all  the 
Amur  redon  is  in  revolt.  It  is  not  the  thino;  to  tell 
tales.  An  escaped  convict  can  travel  freely  on  the 
steamer  to  the  ocean,  without  any  fear  of  the  captain's 
giving  him  up.  This  is  partly  due  to  the  absolute 
indifference  to  everything  that  is  done  in  Russia. 
Evervbodv  savs:  "What  is  it  to  do  with  me?" 

I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  in  Transbaikalia  the  driv- 
ers are  not  Russians  but  Buriats.  A  funnv  people! 
Their  horses  are  regular  vipers;  thev  could  never 
be  harnessed  -without  trouble — more  furious  than 
fire-brigade  horses.  While  the  trace-horse  is  being 
harnessed,  its  legs  are  hobbled;  as  soon  as  they  are  set 
free  the  chaise  goes  flying  to  the  devil,  so  that  one 


210  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

holds  one's  breath.  If  one  does  not  hobble  a  horse 
while  it  is  being  harnessed,  it  kicks,  knocks  bits  out  of 
the  shaft  with  its  hoofs,  tears  the  harness,  and  behaves 
like  a  young  devil  that  has  been  caught  by  the  horns. 

June  26. 

We  are  getting  near  Blagoveshtchensk.  Be  well 
and  merry,  and  don't  get  used  to  being  without  me. 
No  doubt  you  have  already?  Respectful  greetings 
to  all,  and  a  friendly  kiss. 

I  am  perfectly  well. 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Blagoveshtchensk, 

June  27,  1890. 

The  Amur  is  a  very  fine  river ;  I  have  gained  more 
from  it  than  I  could  have  expected,  and  I  have  been 
wishing  for  a  long  time  to  share  my  transports  with 
you,  but  the  rascally  steamer  has  been  rocking  all 
the  seven  days  I  have  been  on  it,  and  prevents  me 
writing  properly.  Moreover,  I  am  quite  incapable 
of  describing  anything  so  beautiful  as  the  shores  of 
the  Amur;  I  am  at  a  complete  loss  before  them,  and 
recognise  my  bankruptcy.  How  is  one  to  describe 
them?  .  .  .  Rocks,  crags,  forests,  thousands  of 
ducks,  herons  and  all  sorts  of  beaked  gentry,  and 
absolute  wilderness.  On  the  left  the  Russian  shore, 
on  the  right  the  Chinese.  I  can  look  at  Russia  or 
China  as  I  please.  China  is  as  deserted  and  wdld  as 
Russia:  villages  and  sentinels'  huts  are  rare.  Every- 
thing in  my  head  is  muddled;  and  no  wonder,  your 
Excellency!      I  have  come  more  than  a  thousand 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  211 

versts  down  the  Amur  and  seen  a  million  landscapes, 
and  you  know  before  the  Amur  there  was  Lake 
Baikal,  Transbaikalia.  .  .  .  Truly  I  have  seen 
such  riches  and  had  so  much  enjoyment  that  death 
would  have  no  terrors  now.  The  people  on  the  Amur 
are  original,  their  life  is  interesting,  unlike  ours. 
They  talk  of  gold,  gold,  gold,  and  nothing  else.  I  am 
in  a  stupid  state,  I  feel  no  inclination  to  write,  and 
I  write  shortly,  piggishly;  to-day  I  sent  you  four 
papers  about  Yenissey  and  the  Taiga,  later  on  I  will 
send  you  something  about  Lake  Baikal,  Trans- 
baikaha,  and  the  Amur.  Don't  throw  away  these 
sheets ;  I  will  collect  them,  and  they  will  serve  as  notes 
from  which  I  can  tell  you  what  I  don't  know  how  to 
put  on  paper. 

To-day  I  changed  into  the  steamer  Muravyov, 
which  they  say  does  not  rock;  maybe  I  shall  write. 

I  am  in  love  with  the  Amur;  I  should  be  glad  to 
spend  a  couple  of  years  on  it.  There  is  beauty, 
space,  freedom  and  warmth.  Switzerland  and  France 
have  never  known  such  freedom.  The  lowest  con- 
vict breathes  more  freely  on  the  Amur  than  the  high- 
est general  in  Russia.  If  you  Hved  here,  you  would 
write  a  great  deal  of  good  stuff  and  delight  the  public, 
but  I  am  not  equal  to  it. 

One  begins  to  meet  Chinamen  at  Irkutsk,  and  here 
they  are  common  as  flies.  They  are  the  most  good- 
natured  people.  If  Nastya  and  Borya  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  the  Chinese,  they  would  leave  donkeys 
alone,  and  transfer  their  affection  to  the  Chinese. 
They  are  charming  tame  animals. 

.  .  .  When  I  invited  a  Chinaman  to  the  refresh- 
ment bar  to  treat  him  to  vodka,  before  drinking  it  he 
held  out  the  glass  to  me,  the  bar-keeper,  the  waiters, 


212  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

and  said:  "Taste."  That's  the  Chinese  ceremonial. 
He  did  not  drink  it  off  as  we  do,  but  drank  it  in  sips, 
eating  something  between  each  sip,  and  then,  to 
express  his  gratitude,  gave  me  several  Chinese 
coins.  An  awfully  polite  people.  They  are  dressed 
poorly,  but  beautifully;  they  eat  daintily,  with  cere- 
mony  


To  HIS  Sister. 

The  Steamer  "Muravyov," 
June  29,  1890. 

Meteors  are  flying  in  my  cabin — ^these  are  luminous 
beetles  that  look  like  electric  sparks.  Wild  goats 
swim  across  the  Amur  in  the  day-time.  The  flies 
here  are  huge.  I  am  sharing  my  cabin  with  a  China- 
man— Son-Luli — who  is  constantly  telling  me  how 
in  China  for  the  merest  trifle  it  is  "off  with  his  head." 
Last  night  he  got  drunk  with  opium,  and  was  talking 
in  his  sleep  all  night  and  preventing  me  from  sleep- 
ing. On  the  27th  I  walked  about  the  Chinese  town 
Aigun.  Little  by  little  I  seem  gradually  to  be  step- 
ping into  a  fantastic  world.  The  steamer  rocks,  it  is 
hard  to  write. 

To-morrow  I  shall  reach  Habarovsk.  The  China- 
man began  to  sing  from  music  written  on  his  fan. 


Telegram  to  his  Mother. 

Sahalin, 

July  11,  1890. 

Arrived  well,  telegraph  Sahalin. — Chekhov. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  213 


Telegram  to  his  Mother. 

Sahalin, 
September  27,  1890. 

Well.     Shall  arrive  shortly. — Chekhov. 


To  a.  S.  Suvorin. 

The  Steamer  "Baikal," 
September  11,  1890. 

Greetings!  I  am  sailing  on  the  Gulf  of  Tartary 
from  the  north  of  Sahalin  to  the  south.  I  am  writing 
and  don't  know  when  this  letter  will  reach  you.  I 
am  well,  though  I  see  on  all  sides  glaring  at  me  the 
green  eyes  of  cholera  which  has  laid  a  trap  for  me. 
In  Vladivostok,  in  Japan,  in  Shanghai,  Tchifu,  Suez, 
and  even  in  the  moon,  I  fancy — everywhere  there 
is  cholera,  everywhere  quarantine  and  terror.  .  .  . 
They  expect  the  cholera  in  Sahalin  and  keep  all  ves- 
sels in  quarantine.  In  short,  it  is  a  bad  lookout. 
Europeans  are  dying  at  Vladivostok,  among  others 
the  wife  of  a  general  has  died. 

I  have  spent  just  two  months  in  the  north  of  Saha- 
lin. I  was  received  by  the  local  administration  very 
amicably,  though  Galkin  had  not  written  a  single 
word  about  me.  Neither  Galkin  nor  the  Baroness 
v.,  nor  any  of  the  other  genii  I  was  so  foolish  as  to 
appeal  to  for  help,  turned  out  of  the  slightest  use  to 
me;  I  had  to  act  on  my  own  initiative. 

The  Sahalin  general,  Kononovitch,  is  a  cultivated 
and  gentlemanly  man.  We  soon  got  on  together, 
and  everything  went  off  well.  I  am  bringing  some 
papers  with  me  from  which  you  will  see  that  I  was 


214  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

put  on  the  most  agreeable  footing  from  the  first.  I 
have  seen  everything,  so  that  the  question  is  not  now 
what  I  have  seen,  but  how  I  have  seen  it. 

I  don't  know  what  will  come  of  it,  but  I  have  done 
a  good  deal.  I  have  got  enough  material  for  three 
dissertations.  I  got  up  every  morning  at  five  o'clock 
and  went  to  bed  late;  and  all  day  long  was  on  the 
strain  from  the  thought  that  there  was  still  so  much  I 
hadn't  done;  and  now  that  I  have  done  with  the  con- 
vict system,  I  have  the  feeling  that  I  have  seen  every- 
thing but  have  not  noticed  the  elephants. 

By  the  way,  I  had  the  patience  to  make  a  census  of 
the  whole  Sahalin  population.  I  made  the  round  of 
all  the  settlements,  went  into  every  hut  and  talked  to 
everyone;  I  made  use  of  the  card  system  in  making 
the  census,  and  I  have  already  registered  about  ten 
thousand  convicts  and  settlers.  In  other  words, 
there  is  not  in  Sahalin  one  convict  or  settler  who  has 
not  talked  with  me.  I  was  particularly  successful 
with  the  census  of  the  children,  on  which  I  am  build- 
ing great  hopes. 

I  dined  at  Landsberg's ;  I  sat  in  the  kitchen  of  the 
former  Baroness  Gembruk.  ...  I  visited  all  the 
celebrities.  I  was  present  at  a  flogging,  after  which 
I  dreamed  for  three  or  four  nights  of  the  executioner 
and  the  revolting  accessories.  I  have  talked  to  men 
who  were  chained  to  trucks.  Once  when  I  was 
drinking  tea  in  a  mine,  Borodavkin,  once  a  Petersburg 
merchant  who  was  convicted  of  arson,  took  a  tea- 
spoon out  of  his  pocket  and  gave  it  to  me,  and  the 
long  and  the  short  of  it  is  that  I  have  upset  my  nerves 
and  have  vowed  not  to  come  to  Sahalin  again. 

I  should  write  more  to  you,  but  there  is  a  lady  in 
the  cabin  who  giggles  and  chatters  unceasingly.     I 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  215 

haven't  the  strength  to  write.  She  has  been  laugh- 
ing and  cackhng  ever  since  yesterday  evening. 

This  letter  will  go  across  America,  but  I  shall  go 
probably  not  across  America.  Everyone  says  that 
the  American  way  is  duller  and  more  expensive. 

To-morrow  I  shall  see  Japan,  the  Island  of  Mats- 
mai.  Now  it  is  twelve  o'clock  at  night.  It  is  dark 
on  the  sea,  the  wind  is  blowing.  I  don't  understand 
how  the  steamer  can  go  on  and  find  its  direction  when 
one  can't  see  a  thing,  and  above  all  in  such  wild, 
little-known  waters  as  those  in  the  Gulf  of  Tartary. 

When  I  remember  that  I  am  ten  thousand  versts 
away  from  my  world  I  am  overcome  with  apathy.  It 
seems  I  shall  not  be  home  for  a  hundred  years.  .  .  . 
God  give  you  health  and  all  blessings.     I  feel  dreary. 

****** 


To  HIS  Mother. 


Sahalin, 
October  6,  1890. 


My  greetings,  dear  mother! 

I  write  you  this  letter  almost  on  the  eve  of  my 
departure  for  Russia.  Every  day  we  expect  a 
steamer  of  the  Volunteer  Fleet,  and  cherish  hopes 
that  it  will  not  come  later  than  the  10th  of  October. 
I  send  this  letter  to  Japan,  whence  it  will  go  by 
Shanghai  or  America.  I  am  living  at  the  station  of 
Korsakovo,  where  there  is  neither  telegraph  nor  post, 
and  which  is  not  visited  by  ships  oftener  than  once  a 
fortnight.  Yesterday  a  steamer  arrived  and  brought 
me  from  the  north  a  pile  of  letters  and  telegrams. 
From    the    letters    I    learn    that    Masha   likes    the 


216  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Crimea,  I  believe  she  will  like  the  Caucasus  better 
still.  .   .   . 

****** 

Strange,  with  you  it  has  been  cold  and  rainy,  while 
in  Sahalin  from  the  day  of  my  arrival  till  to-day  it 
has  been  bright  warm  weather:  there  is  slight  cold 
with  hoar-frost  in  the  mornings,  the  snow  is  white 
on  one  of  the  mountains,  but  the  earth  is  still  green, 
the  leaves  have  not  fallen,  and  all  the  vegetation  is 
still  as  flourishing  as  at  a  summer  villa  in  May. 
There  you  have  Sahalin! 

****** 

At  midnight  yesterday  I  heard  the  roar  of  a  steamer. 
Everybody  jumped  out  of  bed:  hurrah!  the  steamer 
has  arrived !  We  dressed  and  went  out  with  lanterns 
to  the  harbour;  we  gazed  into  the  distance;  there 
really  was  a  steamer.  .  .  .  The  majority  of  voices 
decided  that  it  was  the  Petersburg,  on  which  I  am  to 
go  to  Russia.  I  was  overjoyed.  We  got  into  a 
boat  and  rowed  to  the  steamer.  We  went  on  and  on, 
till  at  last  we  saw  in  the  mist  the  dark  hulk  of  a 
steamer.  One  of  us  shouted  in  a  hoarse  voice  asking 
the  name  of  the  vessel.  And  we  received  the  answer 
"the  Baikal.^'  Tfoo!  anathema!  what  a  disappoint- 
ment !  I  am  homesick,  and  weary  of  Sahalin.  Here 
for  the  last  three  months  I  have  seen  no  one  but  con- 
victs or  people  who  can  talk  of  nothing  but  penal 
servitude,  the  lash,  and  the  convicts.  A  depressing 
existence.  One  longs  to  get  quickly  to  Japan  and 
from  there  to  India. 

I  am  quite  well,  except  for  flashes  in  my  eye  from 
which  I  often  suffer  now,  after  which  I  always  have 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  217 

a  bad  headache.  I  had  the  flashes  in  my  eye  yester- 
day and  to-day,  and  so  I  am  writing  this  with  a  head- 
ache and  heaviness  all  over. 

At  the  station  the  Japanese  General  Kuse-San 
lives  with  his  two  secretaries,  good  friends  of  mine. 
They  live  like  Europeans.  To-day  the  local  author- 
ities visited  them  in  state  to  present  decorations  that 
had  been  conferred  on  them;  and  I,  too,  went  with 
my  headache  and  had  to  drink  champagne. 

Since  I  have  been  in  the  south  I  have  three  times 
driven  to  Nay  Race  where  the  real  ocean  waves 
break.  Look  at  the  map  and  you  will  see  at  once  on 
the  south  coast  that  poor  dismal  Nay  Race.  The 
waves  cast  up  a  boat  with  six  American  whalefishers, 
who  had  been  shipwrecked  off  the  coast  of  Sahalin; 
they  are  living  now  at  the  station  and  solemnly  walk 
about  the  streets.  They  are  waiting  for  the  Peters- 
burg and  will  sail  with  me. 

I  am  not  bringing  you  furs,  there  are  none  in 
Sahalin.     Keep  well  and  Heaven  guard  you  all. 

I  am  bringing  you  all  presents.  The  cholera  in 
Vladivostok  and  Japan  is  over. 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 


Malaya  Dmitrovka, 
Moscow, 

December  9. 


.  .  .  Hurrah!  Here  at  last  I  am  sitting  at  my 
table  at  home!  I  pray  to  my  faded  penates  and 
write  to  you.  I  have  now  a  happy  feeling  as  though 
I  had  not  been  away  from  home  at  all.     I  am  well  and 


218  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

thriving  to  the  marrow  of  my  bones.  Here's  a  very 
brief  report  for  you.  I  was  in  SahaHn  not  two 
months,  as  you  have  printed,  but  three  months  plus 
two  days.  I  worked  at  high  pressure.  I  made  a  full 
and  minute  census  of  the  whole  of  Sahalin's  popula- 
tion, and  saw  everything  except  the  death  penalty. 
When  we  see  each  other  I  will  show  you  a  whole  trunk- 
ful  of  stuff  about  the  convicts  which  is  very  valuable 
as  raw  material.  I  know  a  very  great  deal  now,  but  I 
have  brought  away  a  horrid  feeling.  While  I  was 
staying  in  Sahalin,  I  only  had  a  bitter  feeling  in  my 
inside  as  though  from  rancid  butter;  and  now,  as  I 
remember  it,  Sahalin  seems  to  me  a  perfect  hell. 
For  two  months  I  worked  intensely,  putting  my  back 
into  it;  in  the  third  month  I  began  to  feel  ill  from 
the  bitterness  I  have  spoken  of,  from  boredom,  and 
the  thought  that  the  cholera  would  come  from  Vladi- 
vostok to  Sahalin,  and  that  so  I  was  in  danger  of  hav- 
ing to  winter  in  the  convict  settlement.  But,  thank 
God!  the  cholera  ceased,  and  on  the  13th  of  October 
the  steamer  bore  me  away  from  Sahalin.  I  have 
been  in  Vladivostok.  About  the  Primorsky  Region 
and  our  Eastern  sea-coast  with  its  fleets,  its  problems, 
and  its  Pacific  dreams  altogether,  I  have  only  one 
thing  to  tell  of :  its  crying  poverty!  Poverty,  ignor- 
ance, and  worthlessness,  that  might  drive  one  to  de- 
spair. One  honest  man  for  ninety-nine  thieves,  that 
are  blackening  the  name  of  Russia.  .  .  .  We 
passed  Japan  because  the  cholera  was  there,  and  so  I 
have  not  bought  you  anything  Japanese,  and  the  five 
hundred  you  gave  me  for  your  purchases  I  have  spent 
on  my  own  needs,  for  which  you  have,  by  law,  the 
right  to  send  me  to  a  settlement  in  Siberia.  The 
first  foreign  port  we  reached  was  Hong  Kong.     It  is 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  219 

an  exquisite  bay.  The  traffic  on  the  sea  was  such 
as  I  had  never  seen  before  even  in  pictures ;  excellent 
roads,  trams,  a  railway  to  the  mountains,  a  museum, 
botanical  gardens;  wherever  you  look  you  see  the 
tenderest  solicitude  on  the  part  of  the  English  for  the 
men  in  their  service;  there  is  even  a  club  for 
the  sailors.  I  went  about  in  a  jinrickshaw — that  is, 
carried  by  men — bought  all  sorts  of  rubbish  of  the 
Chinese,  and  was  moved  to  indignation  at  hearing  my 
Russian  fellow-travellers  abuse  the  English  for  ex- 
ploiting the  natives.  I  thought:  Yes,  the  English 
exploit  the  Chinese,  the  Sepoys,  the  Hindoos,  but  they 
do  give  them  roads,  aqueducts,  museums,  Christian- 
ity, and  what  do  you  give  them? 

When  we  left  Hong  Kong  the  boat  began  to  rock. 
The  steamer  was  empty  and  lurched  through  an  angle 
of  thirty-eight  degrees,  so  that  we  were  afraid  it 
would  upset.  I  am  not  subject  to  sea-sickness:  that 
discovery  was  very  agreeable  to  me.  On  the  way  to 
Singapore  we  threw  two  corpses  into  the  sea.  When 
one  sees  a  dead  man,  wrapped  in  sailcloth,  fly,  turn- 
ing somersaults  in  the  water,  and  remembers  that  it  is 
several  miles  to  the  bottom,  one  feels  frightened,  and 
for  some  reason  begins  to  fancy  that  one  will  die 
oneself  and  will  be  thrown  into  the  sea.  Our 
horned  cattle  have  fallen  sick.  Through  the  united 
verdict  of  Dr.  Stcherbak  and  your  humble  servant, 
the  cattle  have  been  killed  and  thrown  into  the 
sea. 

I  have  no  clear  memory  of  Singapore  as,  for  some 
reason,  I  felt  very  sad  while  I  was  driving  about  it, 
and  was  almost  weeping.  Next  after  it  comes  Ceylon 
— an  earthly  Paradise.  There  in  that  Paradise  I 
went  more  than  a  hundred  versts  on  the  railway  and 


220  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

gazed  at  palm  forests  and  bronze  women  to  my 
heart's  content.  .  .  .  After  Ceylon  we  sailed  for 
thirteen  days  and  nights  without  stopping  and  were 
all  stupid  from  boredom.  I  bear  the  heat  well.  The 
Red  Sea  is  depressing;  I  felt  touched  as  I  gazed  at 
Sinai. 

God's  world  is  a  good  place.  The  one  thing  not 
good  in  it  is  we.  How  little  justice  and  humility 
there  is  in  us.  How  little  we  understand  true  patriot- 
ism !  A  drunken,  broken-down  debauchee  of  a  hus- 
band loves  his  wife  and  children,  but  of  what  use  is 
that  love?  We,  so  we  are  told  in  our  own  newspapers, 
love  our  great  motherland,  but  how  does  that  love 
express  itself?  Instead  of  knowledge — insolence 
and  immeasurable  conceit;  instead  of  work — sloth 
and  swinishness;  there  is  no  justice,  the  conception 
of  honour  does  not  go  beyond  "the  honour  of  the 
uniform" — the  uniform  which  is  so  commonly  seen 
adorning  the  prisoner's  dock  in  our  courts.  Work  is 
what  is  wanted,  and  the  rest  can  go  to  the  devil. 
First  of  all  we  must  be  just,  and  all  the  rest  will  be 
added  unto  us. 

I  have  a  passionate  desire  to  talk  to  you.  My  soul 
is  in  a  ferment.  I  want  no  one  else  but  you,  for  it  is 
only  with  you  I  can  talk. 

****** 

How  glad  I  am  that  everything  was  managed 
without  Calkin- Vrasskoy's  help.  He  didn't  write 
one  line  about  me,  and  I  turned  up  in  Sahalin  utterly 
unknown. 

****** 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  221 


Moscow, 
December  24,  1890. 

I  believe  in  Koch  and  in  spermine  and  praise  God 
for  it.  All  that — that  is  the  kochines,  spermines, 
and  so  on — seem  to  the  public  a  kind  of  miracle  that 
leaped  forth  from  some  brain,  after  the  fashion  of 
Pallas  Athene:  but  people  who  have  a  closer  acquain- 
tance with  the  facts  know  that  they  are  only  the  natural 
sequel  of  what  has  been  done  during  the  last  twenty 
years.  A  great  deal  has  been  done,  my  dear  fellow! 
Surgery  alone  has  done  so  much  that  one  is  fairly 
dumbfoundered  at  it.  To  one  who  is  studying 
medicine  now,  the  time  before  twenty  years  ago 
seems  simply  pitiable.  My  dear  friend,  if  I  were 
offered  the  choice  between  the  "ideals"  of  the 
renowned  "sixties,"  or  the  very  poorest  Zemstvo 
hospital  of  to-day,  I  should,  without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  choose  the  second. 

Will  kochine  cure  syphilis?  It's  possible.  But 
as  for  cancer,  you  must  allow  me  to  have  my  doubts. 
Cancer  is  not  a  microbe;  it's  a  tissue,  growing  in  the 
wrong  place,  and  like  a  noxious  weed  smothering  all 
the  neighbouring  tissues.  If  N.'s  uncle  feels  better, 
that  is,  because  the  microbes  of  erysipelas — that  is, 
the  elements  that  produce  the  disease  of  erysipelas — 
form  a  component  part  of  kochine.  It  was  observed 
long  ago  that  with  the  development  of  erysipelas,  the 
growth  of  malignant  tumours  is  temporarily  checked.. 

*  *  *  -x-  *  * 

It's  a  strange  business — while  I  was  travelling  to 
Sahalin  and  back  I  felt  perfectly  well,  but  now,  at 
home,  the  devil  knows  what  is  happening  to  me.     My 


222  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

head  is  continually  aching,  I  have  a  feeling  of  languor 
all  over,  I  am  quickly  exhausted,  apathetic,  and  worst 
of  all,  my  heart  is  not  beating  regularly.  My  heart  is 
continually  stopping  for  a  few  seconds.   .   .   . 

Moscow, 
January,  1891. 

I  shall  probably  come  to  Petersburg  on  the  8th  of 
January.  .  .  .  Since  by  February  I  shall  not  have  a 
farthing,  I  must  make  haste  and  finish  the  noveP 
I've  begun.  There  is  something  in  the  novel  about 
which  I  must  talk  to  you  and  ask  your  advice. 

I  spent  Christmas  in  a  horrible  way.  To  begin 
with,  I  had  palpitations  of  the  heart;  secondly,  my 
brother  Ivan  came  to  stay  and  was  ill  with  typhoid, 
poor  fellow;  thirdly,  after  my  Sahalin  labours  and  the 
tropics,  my  Moscow  life  seems  to  me  now  so  petty, 
so  bourgeois,  and  so  dull,  that  I  feel  ready  to  bite; 
fourthly,  working  for  my  daily  bread  prevents  my 
giving  up  my  time  to  Sahalin;  fifthly,  my  acquain- 
tances bother  me,  and  so  on. 

The  poet  Merezhkovsky  has  been  to  see  me  twice; 
he  is  a  very  intelligent  man. 

How  sorry  I  am  you  did  not  see  my  mongoose.  It 
is  a  wonderful  creature. 

To  HIS  Sister. 

St.  Petersburg, 
January  14,  1891. 

Unforeseen  circumstances  have  kept  me  a  few  days 
longer.  I  am  alive  and  well.  There  is  no  news.  I 
saw  Tolstoy's  "The  Power  of  Darkness"  the  other 

*  "The  Duel." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  223 

day,    though.     I    have    been    to    Ryepin's    studio. 
What  else?     Nothing  else.     It's  dull,  in  fact. 

I  went  to-day  to  a  dog-show;  I  went  there  with 
Suvorin,  who  at  the  moment  I  am  writing  these  lines 
is  standing  by  the  table  and  asking  me  to  write  and 
tell  you  that  I  have  been  to  the  dog-show  with  the 
famous  dog  Suvorin.   .   .   . 


January,  later. 

I  am  alive  and  well,  I  have  no  palpitations,  I've 
no  money  either,  and  everything  is  going  well. 

I  am  paying  visits  and  seeing  acquaintances.  I 
have  to  talk  about  Sahalin  and  India.  It's  horribly 
boring. 

.  .  .  Anna  Ivanovna  is  as  nice  as  ever,  Suvorin 
talks  as  incessantly  as  ever. 

I  receive  the  most  boring  invitations  to  the  most 
boring  dinners.  It  seems  I  must  make  haste  and  get 
back  to  Moscow,  as  they  won't  let  me  work 
here. 

Hurrah,  we  are  avenged!  To  make  up  for  our 
being  so  bored,  the  cotton  ball  has  yielded  1,500 
roubles  clear  profit,  in  confirmation  of  which  I  en- 
close a  cutting  from  a  newspaper. 

If  anything  is  collected  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Sahalin  schools,  let  me  know  at  once. 

How  is  my  mongoose?  Don't  forget  to  give  him 
food  and  drink,  and  beat  him  without  mercy  when 
he  jumps  on  the  table.     Does  he  eat  people?* 

Write  how  Ivan  is.   .   .   . 

*  A  naive  question  asked  by  a  lady  of  Chekhov's  acquaintance. 


224  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

January,  later. 

I  am  tired  as  a  ballet  dancer  after  five  acts  and 
eight  tableaux.  Dinners,  letters  which  I  am  too 
lazy  to  answer,  conversations  and  imbecilities  of  all 
sorts.  I  have  to  go  immediately  to  dine  in  Vassil- 
yevsky  Ostrov,  and  I  am  bored  and  ought  to  work. 
I'll  stay  another  three  days  and  see  whether  the  ballet 
will  go  on  the  same,  then  I  shall  go  home,  or  to  see 
Ivan. 

I  am  surrounded  by  a  thick  atmosphere  of  ill-feel- 
ing, extremely  vague  and  to  me  incomprehensible. 
They  feed  me  with  dinners  and  pay  me  the  vulgarest 
compliments,  and  at  the  same  time  they  are  ready  to 
devour  me.  What  for?  The  devil  only  knows.  If 
I  were  to  shoot  myself  I  should  thereby  provide  the 
greatest  gratification  to  nine-tenths  of  my  friends  and 
admirers.  And  how  pettily  they  express  their  petty 
feelings ! 

.  .  .  My  greetings  to  Lydia  Yegorovna  Mizinov. 
I  expect  a  programme  from  her.  Tell  her  not  to  eat 
farinaceous  food  and  to  avoid  Levitan.  A  better 
admirer  than  me  she  will  not  find  in  her  Town  Council 
nor  in  higher  society. 

January  16,  1891. 

I  have  the  honour  to  congratulate  you  and  the 
hero  of  the  name-day;*  I  wish  you  and  him  health 
and  prosperity,  and  above  all  that  the  mongoose 
should  not  break  the  crockery  or  tear  the  wall-paper. 
I  shall  celebrate  my  name-day  at  the  Maly  Yaro- 
slavets  restaurant,  from  the  restaurant  to  the  benefit 
performance,  from  the  benefit  performance  to  the 
restaurant  again. 

*  It  was  the  name-day  of  Chekhov  himself. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  225 

I  am  working,  but  with  very  great  difficulty.  No 
sooner  have  I  written  a  Hne  than  the  bell  rings  and 
someone  comes  in  to  talk  to  me  about  Sahalin.  It's 
simply  awful!    .   .   . 

I  have  found  Drishka.  It  appears  that  she  is 
living  in  the  same  house  as  I  am.  She  ran  away 
from  Moscow  to  Petersburg  under  romantic  circum- 
stances: she  meant  to  marry  a  lawyer,  plighted  her 
troth  to  him,  but  an  army  captain  turned  up,  and  so 
on;  she  had  to  run  away  or  the  lawyer  would  have 
shot  both  Drishka  and  the  captain  with  a  pistol  loaded 
with  cranberries.  She  is  prospering  and  is  the  same 
lively  rogue  as  ever.  I  went  to  Svobodin's  name-day 
party  with  her  yesterday.  She  sang  gipsy  songs,  and 
created  such  a  sensation  that  all  the  great  men  kissed 
her  hand. 

Rumours  have  reached  me  that  Lidia  Stahievna  is 
going  to  be  married  par  depit.  Is  it  true  ?  Tell  her 
that  I  shall  carry  her  off  from  her  husband  par  depit. 
I  am  a  violent  man. 

Has  not  anything  been  collected  for  the  benefit  of 
the  Sahalin  schools?     Let  me  know.   .   .   . 


To  A.  F.  KoNi. 

Petersburg, 

January  16,  1891. 

Dear  Sir,  Anatoly  Fyodorovitch, 

I  did  not  hasten  to  answer  your  letter  because 
I  am  not  leaving  Petersburg  before  next  Saturday. 
I  am  sorry  I  have  not  been  to  see  Madame  Naryshkin, 
but  I  think  I  had  better  defer  my  visit  till  my  book 
has  come  out,  when  I  shall  be  able  to  turn  more 


226  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

freely  to  the  material  I  have.  My  brief  Sahalin  past 
looms  so  immense  in  my  imagination  that  when  I 
want  to  speak  about  it  I  don't  know  where  to  begin, 
and  it  always  seems  to  me  that  I  have  not 
said  what  was  wanted, 

I  will  try  and  describe  minutely  the  position  of  the 
children  and  young  people  in  Sahalin.  It  is  excep- 
tional. I  saw  stai-ving  children,  I  saw  girls  of  thir- 
teen prostitutes,  girls  of  fifteen  with  child.  Girls  be- 
gin to  live  by  prostitution  from  twelve  years  old,  some- 
times before  menstruation  has  begun.  Church  and 
school  exist  only  on  paper,  the  children  are  educated 
by  their  environment  and  the  convict  surroundings. 
Among  other  things  I  have  noted  down  a  conversa- 
tion with  a  boy  of  ten  years  old.  I  was  making  the 
census  of  the  settlement  of  Upper  Armudano;  all  the 
inhabitants  are  poverty-stricken,  every  one  of  them, 
and  have  the  reputation  of  being  desperate  gamblers 
at  the  game  of  shtoss.  I  go  into  a  hut;  the  people 
are  not  at  home;  on  a  bench  sits  a  white-haired, 
round-shouldered,  bare-footed  boy;  he  seems  lost  in 
thought.     We  begin  to  talk. 

I.   "What  is  your  father's  second  name?" 

He.   "I  don't  know." 

I.  "How  is  that?  You  live  with  your  father  and 
don't  know  what  his  name  is?     Shame!" 

He.   "He  is  not  my  real  father." 

I.   "How  is  that?" 

He.   "He  is  living  with  mother." 

I.   "Is  your  mother  married  or  a  widow?" 

He.   "A  widow.     She  followed  her  husband  here.' ' 

I.   "What  has  become  of  her  husband,  then?" 

He.   "She  killed  him." 

I.   "Do  you  remember  your  father?" 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  227 

He.  "No,  I  don't,  I  am  illegitimate.  I  was  born 
when  mother  was  at  Kara." 

On  the  Amur  steamer  going  to  Sahalin,  there  was 
a  convict  with  fetters  on  his  legs  who  had  murdered 
his  wife.  His  daughter,  a  little  girl  of  six,  was  with 
him.  I  noticed  wherever  the  convict  moved  the  little 
girl  scrambled  after  him,  holding  on  to  his  fetters. 
At  night  the  child  slept  with  the  convicts  and  soldiers 
all  in  a  heap  together.  I  remember  I  was  at  a 
funeral  in  Sahalin.  Beside  the  newly  dug  grave 
stood  four  convict  bearers  ex  officio;  the  treasury 
clerk  and  I,  in  the  capacity  of  Hamlet  and  Horatio, 
wandering  about  the  cemetery;  the  dead  woman's 
lodger,  a  Circassian,  who  had  come  because  he  had 
nothing  better  to  do;  and  a  convict  woman  who  had 
come  out  of  pity  and  had  brought  the  dead  woman's 
two  children,  one  a  baby,  and  the  other,  Alyoshka,  a 
boy  of  four,  wearing  a  woman's  jacket  and  blue 
breeches  with  bright-coloured  patches  on  the  knees. 
It  was  cold  and  damp,  there  was  water  in  the  grave, 
the  convicts  were  laughing.  The  sea  was  in  sight. 
Alyoshka  looked  into  the  grave  with  curiosity;  he 
tried  to  wipe  his  chilly  nose,  but  the  long  sleeve  of  his 
jacket  got  into  his  way.  When  they  began  to  fill  in 
the  grave  I  asked  him:  "Alyoshka,  where  is  your 
mother?"  He  waved  his  hand  with  the  air  of  a 
gentleman  who  has  lost  at  cards,  laughed,  and  said: 
"They  have  buried  her!" 

The  convicts  laughed,  the  Circassian  turned  and 
asked  what  he  was  to  do  with  the  children,  saying  it 
was  not  his  duty  to  feed  them. 

Infectious  diseases  I  did  not  meet  with  in  Sahalin. 
There  is  very  little  congenital  syphilis,  but  I  saw 
blind  children,  filthy,  covered  with  eruptions — all 


228  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

diseases  that  are  evidence  of  neglect.  Of  course  I 
am  not  going  to  settle  the  problem  of  the  children. 
I  don't  know  what  ought  to  be  done.  But  it  seems 
to  me  that  one  will  do  nothing  by  means  of  philan- 
thropy and  what  little  is  left  of  prison  and  other  funds. 
To  my  thinking,  to  make  something  of  great  impor- 
tance dependent  upon  charity,  which  in  Russia  always 
has  a  casual  character,  and  on  funds  which  do  not 
exist,  is  pernicious.  I  should  prefer  it  to  be  financed 
out  of  the  government  treasury. 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Moscow, 
January  31,  1891. 

At  home  I  found  depression.  My  nicest  and  most 
intelligent  mongoose  had  fallen  ill  and  was  lying  very 
quietly  under  a  quilt.  The  little  beast  eats  and 
drinks  nothing.  The  climate  has  already  laid  its  cold 
claw  on  it  and  means  to  kill  it.     What  for? 

We  have  received  a  dismal  letter.  In  Taganrog 
we  were  on  friendly  terms  with  a  well-to-do  Polish 
family.  The  cakes  and  jam  I  ate  in  their  house  when 
I  was  a  boy  at  school  arouse  in  me  now  the  most  touch- 
ing reminiscences;  there  used  to  be  music,  young 
ladies,  home-made  liqueurs,  and  catching  goldfinches 
in  the  immense  courtyard.  The  father  had  a  post  in 
the  Taganrog  customs  and  got  into  trouble.  The  in- 
vestigation and  trial  ruined  the  family.  There  were 
two  daughters  and  a  son.  When  the  elder  daughter 
married  a  rascal  of  a  Greek,  the  family  took  an 
orphan  girl  into  the  house  to  bring  up.  This  little 
girl  was  attacked  by  disease  of  the  knee  and  they 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  229 

amputated  the  leg.  Then  the  son  died  of  consump- 
tion, a  medical  student  in  his  fourth  year,  an  excellent 
fellow,  a  perfect  Hercules,  the  hope  of  the  family. 
.  .  .  Then  came  terrible  poverty.  .  .  .  The  father  took 
to  wandering  about  the  cemetery,  longed  to  take  to 
drink  but  could  not:  vodka  simply  made  his  head 
ache  cruelly  while  his  thoughts  remained  the  same, 
just  as  sober  and  revolting.  Now  they  write  that  the 
younger  daughter,  a  beautiful,  plump  young  girl,  is 
consumptive.  .  .  .  The  father  writes  to  me  of  that 
and  writes  to  me  for  a  loan  of  ten  roubles.   .   .   .  Ach! 

I  felt  awfully  unwilling  to  leave  you,  but  still  I  am 
glad  I  did  not  remain  another  day — I  went  away  and 
showed  that  I  had  strength  of  will.  I  am  writing 
already.  By  the  time  you  come  to  Moscow  my 
novel*  will  be  finished,  and  I  will  go  back  with  you 
to  Petersburg. 

Tell  Borya,  Mitya,  and  Andrushka  that  I  vituper- 
ate them.  In  the  pocket  of  my  greatcoat  I  found 
some  notes  on  which  was  scrawled:  "Anton  Pavlo- 
vitch,  for  shame,  for  shame,  for  shame!"  0  pes- 
simi  discipuli !     Utinam  vos  lupus  devoret ! 

Last  night  I  did  not  sleep,  and  I  read  through  my 
"Motley  Tales"  for  the  second  edition.  I  threw 
out  about  twenty  stories. 

Moscow, 
February  5,  1891. 

My  mongoose  has  recovered  and  breaks  crockery 
again  with  unfailing  regularity. 

I  am  writing  and  writing !  I  must  own  I  was  afraid 
that  my  Sahalin  expedition  would  have  put  me  out  of 
the  way  of  writing,  but  now  I  see  that  it  is  all  right. 

*  "The  Duel." 


230  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

I  have  written  a  great  deal.  I  am  writing  diffusely 
a  la  Yasinsky.  I  want  to  get  hold  of  a  thousand 
roubles. 

I  shall  soon  begin  to  expect  you.  Are  we  going  to 
Italy  or  not?     We  ought  to. 

In  Petersburg  I  don't  sleep  at  night,  I  drink  and 
loaf  about,  but  I  feel  immeasurably  better  than  in 
Moscow.     The  devil  only  knows  why  it  is  so. 

I  am  not  depressed,  because  in  the  first  place  I  am 
writing,  and  in  the  second,  one  feels  that  summer, 
which  I  love  more  than  anything,  is  close  at  hand. 
I  long  to  prepare  my  fishing  tackle.   .   .   . 


February  23. 

Greetings,  my  dear  friend. 

Your  telegram  about  the  Tormidor  upset  me.  I 
felt  dreadfully  attracted  to  Petersburg:  now  for  the 
sake  of  Sardou  and  the  Parisian  visitors.  But 
practical  considerations  pulled  me  up.  I  reflected 
that  I  must  hurry  on  with  my  novel;  that  I  don't 
know  French,  and  so  should  only  be  taking  up  some- 
one else's  place  in  the  box;  that  I  have  very  little 
money,  and  so  on.  In  short,  as  it  seems  to  me  now, 
I  am  a  poor  comrade,  though  apparently  I  acted 
sensibly. 

My  novel  is  progressing.  It's  all  smooth,  even, 
there  is  scarcely  anything  that  is  too  long.  But  do 
you  know  what  is  very  bad?  There  is  no  movement 
in  my  novel,  and  that  frightens  me.  I  am  afraid  it 
will  be  difficult  to  read  to  the  middle,  to  say  nothing  of 
reading  to  the  end.  Anyway,  I  shall  finish  it.  I 
shall  bring  Anna  Pavlovna  a  copy  on  vellum  paper 
to  read  in  the  bathroom.     I  should  like  something  to 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  231 

sting  her  in  the  water,  so  that  she  would  run  out  of  the 
Lathroom  sobbing. 

I  was  melancholy  when  you  went  away.   .   .   . 

Send  me  some  money.  I  have  none  and  seem  to 
have  nowhere  to  borrow.  By  my  reckoning  I  cannot 
under  favourable  circumstances  get  more  than  a 
thousand  roubles  from  you  before  September.  But 
don't  send  the  money  by  post,  as  I  can't  bear  going 
to  post  offices.   .   .   . 

March  5. 

We  are  going!!!  I  agree  to  go,  where  you  like 
and  when  you  like.  My  soul  is  leaping  with  delight. 
It  would  be  stupid  on  my  part  not  to  go,  for  when 
would  an  opportunity  come  again?  But,  my  dear 
friend,  I  leave  you  to  weigh  the  following  circum- 
stances. 

(1)  My  work  is  still  far  from  being  finished;  if  I 
put  it  by  till  May,  I  shall  not  be  able  to  begin  my 
Sahalin  work  before  July,  and  that  is  risky.  For  my 
Sahalin  impressions  are  already  evaporating,  and  I 
run  the  risk  of  forgetting  a  great  deal. 

(2)  I  have  absolutely  no  money.  If  without 
finishing  my  novel  I  take  another  thousand  roubles 
for  the  tour  abroad,  and  then  for  living  after  the  tour, 
I  shall  get  into  such  a  tangle  that  the  devil  himself 
could  not  pull  me  out  by  the  ears.  I  am  not  in  a 
tangle  yet  because  I  am  up  to  all  sorts  of  dodges,  and 
live  more  frugally  than  a  mouse;  but  if  I  go  abroad 
everything  will  go  to  the  devil.  My  accounts  will  be 
in  a  mess  and  I  shall  get  myself  hopelessly  in  debt. 
The  very  thought  of  a  debt  of  two  thousand  makes 
my  heart  sink. 

There  are  other  considerations,  but  they  are  all  of 


232  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

small  account  beside  that  of  money  and  work.  And 
so,  thoroughly  digest  my  objections,  put  yourself  into 
my  skin  for  a  moment,  and  decide,  wouldn't  it  be 
better  for  me  to  stay  at  home?  You  will  say  all  this 
is  unimportant.  But  lay  aside  your  point  of  view, 
and  look  at  it  from  mine. 

I  await  a  speedy  answer. 

My  noveP  is  progressing,  but  I  have  not  got  far. 

I  have  been  to  the  Kiselyovs'.  The  rooks  are 
already  arriving. 


To  Madame  Kiselyov. 

Moscow, 
March  11,  1891. 

As  I  depart  for  France,  Spain,  and  Italy,  I  beseech 
you,  oh,  Heavens,  keep  Babkino  in  good  health  and 
prosperity ! 

Yes,  Marya  Vladimirovna !  As  it  is  written  in  the 
scripture:  he  had  not  time  to  cry  out,  before  a  bear 
devoured  him.  So  I  had  not  time  to  cry  out  before 
an  unseen  power  has  drawn  me  again  to  the  mysterious 
distance.  To-day  I  am  going  to  Petersburg,  from 
there  to  Berlin,  and  so  further.  Whether  I  climb 
Vesuvius  or  watch  a  bull-fight  in  Spain,  I  shall 
remember  you  in  my  holiest  prayers.     Good-bye. 

I  have  been  to  a  seminary  and  picked  out  a 
seminarist  for  Vassilisa.  There  were  plenty  with 
delicate  feelings  and  responsive  natures,  but  not  one 
would  consent.  At  first,  especially  when  I  told  them 
that  you  sometimes  had  peas  and  radishes  on  your 
table,  they  consented;  but  when  I  accidentally  let 

*  "The  Duel." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  233 

out  that  in  the  district  captain's  room  there  was  a 
bedstead  on  which  people  were  flogged,  they 
scratched  their  heads  and  muttered  that  they  must 
think  it  over.  One,  however,  a  pockmarked  fellow 
called  Gerasim  Ivanovitch,  with  very  delicate  feelings 
and  a  responsive  nature,  is  coming  to  see  you  in  a  day 
or  two.  I  hope  that  Vassilisa  and  you  will  make  him 
welcome.  Snatch  the  chance:  it's  a  brilliant  match. 
You  can  flog  Gerasim  Ivanovitch,  for  he  told  me:  "I 
am  immensely  fond  of  violent  sensations;"  when  he 
is  with  you  you  had  better  lock  the  cupboard  where 
the  vodka  is  kept  and  keep  the  windows  open,  as  the 
seminary  inspiration  and  responsiveness  is  percept- 
ible at  every  minute. 

"What  a  happy  girl  is  Vassilisa!" 

Idiotik  has  not  been  to  see  me  yet. 

The  hens  peck  the  cock.  They  must  be  keeping 
Lent,  or  perhaps  the  virtuous  widows  don't  care  for 
their  new  suitor. 

They  have  brought  me  a  new  overcoat  with  check 
lining. 

Well,  be  in  Heaven's  keeping,  happy,  healthy  and 
peaceful.  God  give  you  all  everything  good.  I 
shall  come  back  in  Holy  Week.  Don't  forget  your 
truly  devoted, 

Anton  Chekhov. 


To  HIS  Sister. 

Petersburg, 
•    March  16.     Midnight. 

I  have  just  seen  the  Italian  actress  Duse  in  Shakes- 
peare's Cleopatra.  I  don't  know  Italian,  but  she 
acted  so  well  that  it  seemed  to  me  I  understood  every 


234  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

word.  A  remarkable  actress!  I  have  never  seen 
anything  like  it  before.  I  gazed  at  that  Duse  and  felt 
overcome  with  misery  at  the  thought  that  we  have  to 
educate  our  temperaments  and  tastes  on  such  wooden 
actresses  as  N.  and  her  like,  whom  we  call  great  be- 
cause we  have  seen  nothing  better.  Looking  at 
Duse  I  understood  why  it  is  that  the  Russian  theatre 
is  so  dull. 

I  sent  three  hundred  roubles  to-day,  did  you  get 
them? 

After  Duse  it  was  amusing  to  read  the  address  I 
enclose."^  My  God,  how  low  taste  and  a  sense  of 
justice  have  sunk!  And  these  are  the  students — the 
devil  take  them !  Whether  it  is  Solovtsov  or  whether 
it  is  Salvini,  it's  all  the  same  to  them,  both  equally 
"stir  a  warm  response  in  the  hearts  of  the  young." 
They  are  worth  a  farthing,  all  those  hearts. 

We  set  off  for  Warsaw  at  half-past  one  to-morrow. 
My  greetings  to  all,  even  the  mongooses,  though  they 
don't  deserve  it.     I  will  write. 

•    Vienna, 
March  20,  1891. 

My  dear  Czechs, 

I  write  to  you  from  Vienna,  which  I  reached 
yesterday  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  Every- 
thing went  well  on  the  journey.  From  Warsaw  to 
Vienna  I  travelled  like  a  railway  Nana  in  a  luxurious 
compartment  of  the  "Societe  Internationale  des 
Wagons-Lits."  Beds,  looking-glasses,  huge  win- 
dows, rugs,  and  so  on. 

Ah,  my  dears,  if  you  only  knew  how  nice  Vienna  is ! 

*  A  newspaper  cutting  containing  an  address:  From  the  Stu- 
dents of  the  Technological  Institute  of  Harkov  to  M.  M.  Solovtsov, 
was  enclosed. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  235 

It  can't  be  compared  with  any  of  the  towns  I  have 
seen  in  my  life.  The  streets  are  broad  and  elegantly 
paved,  there  are  numbers  of  boulevards  and  squares, 
the  houses  have  always  six  or  seven  storeys,  and  shops 
— they  are  not  shops,  but  a  perfect  delirium,  a  dream! 
There  are  myriads  of  neckties  alone  in  the  windows! 
Such  amazing  things  made  of  bronze,  china,  and 
leather!  The  churches  are  huge,  but  they  do  not 
oppress  one  by  their  hugeness;  they  caress  the  eye, 
for  it  seems  as  though  they  are  woven  of  lace.  St. 
Stephen  and  the  Votiv-Kirche  are  particularly  fine. 
They  are  not  like  buildings,  but  like  cakes  for  tea. 
The  parliament,  the  town  hall,  and  the  university 
are  magnificent.  It  is  all  magnificent,  and  I  have 
for  the  first  time  realized,  yesterday  and  to-day, 
that  architecture  is  really  an  art.  And  here  the  art 
is  not  seen  in  little  bits,  as  with  us,  but  stretches  over 
several  versts.  There  are  numbers  of  monuments. 
In  every  side  street  there  is  sure  to  be  a  bookshop. 
In  the  windows  of  the  bookshops  there  are  Russian 
books  to  be  seen — not,  alas,  the  works  of  Albov,  of 
Barantsevitch,  and  of  Chekhov,  but  of  all  sorts  of 
anonymous  authors  who  write  and  publish  abroad. 
I  saw  "Renan,"  "The  Mysteries  of  the  Winter 
Palace,"  and  so  on.  It  is  strange  that  here  one  is 
free  to  read  anything  and  to  say  what  one  likes. 
Understand,  0  ye  peoples,  what  the  cabs  are  like 
here !  The  devil  take  them !  There  are  no  droshkys, 
but  they  are  all  new,  pretty  carriages  with  one  and 
often  two  horses.  Tlie  horses  are  splendid.  On  the 
box  sit  dandies  in  top-hats  and  reefer  jackets,  reading 
the  newspaper,  all  politeness  and  readiness  to  oblige. 
The  dinners  are  good.  There  is  no  vodka;  they 
drink  beer  and  fairly  good  wine.     There  is  one  thing 


236  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

that  is  nasty:  they  make  you  pay  for  bread.  When 
they  bring  the  bill  they  ask,  Wie  viel  brodchen? — 
that  is,  how  many  rolls  have  you  devoured?  And 
you  have  to  pay  for  every  little  roll. 

The  women  are  beautiful  and  elegant.  Indeed, 
everything  is  diabolically  elegant. 

I  have  not  quite  forgotten  German.  I  understand, 
and  am  understood. 

When  we  crossed  the  frontier  it  was  snowing.  In 
Vienna  there  is  no  snow,  but  it  is  cold  all  the  same. 

I  am  homesick  and  miss  you  all,  and  indeed  I  am 
conscience-stricken,  too,  at  deserting  you  all  again. 
But  there,  never  mind!  I  shall  come  back  and  stay 
at  home  for  a  whole  year.  I  send  my  greetings  to 
everyone,  everyone. 

I  wish  you  all  things  good;  don't  forget  me  with 
my  many  transgressions.  I  embrace  you,  I  bless  you, 
send  my  greetings  and  remain, 

Your  loving 

A.  Chekhov. 

Everyone  who  meets  us  recognises  that  we  are  Rus- 
sians, and  stares  not  at  my  face,  but  at  my  grizzled 
cap.  Looking  at  my  cap  they  probably  think  I  am 
a  very  rich  Russian  Count. 


To  HIS  Brother  Ivan. 


Venice, 
March  24,  1891. 


I  am  now  in  Venice.  I  arrived  here  two  days  ago 
from  Vienna.  One  thing  I  can  say:  I  have  never 
in  my  life  seen  a  town  more  marvellous  than  Venice. 
It  is  perfectly  enchanting,  brilHance,  joy,  life.     In- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  237 

stead  of  streets  and  roads  there  are  canals;  instead 
of  cabs,  gondolas.  The  architecture  is  amazing,  and 
there  is  not  a  single  spot  that  does  not  excite  some 
historical  or  artistic  interest.  You  float  in  a  gondola 
and  see  the  palace  of  the  Doges,  the  house  where 
Desdemona  lived,  homes  of  various  painters, 
churches.  And  in  the  churches  there  are  sculptures 
and  paintings  such  as  we  have  never  dreamed  of.  In 
fact  it  is  enchantment. 

All  day  from  morning  till  night  I  sit  in  a  gondola 
and  glide  along  the  streets,  or  I  saunter  about  the 
famous  St.  Mark's  Square.  The  square  is  as  level 
and  clean  as  a  parquet  floor.  Here  there  is  St.  Mark's 
— something  impossible  to  describe — the  Palace  of 
the  Doges,  and  other  buildings  which  make  me  feel  as 
I  do  listening  to  part  singing — I  feel  the  amazing 
beauty  and  revel  in  it. 

And  the  evenings !  My  God !  One  might  almost 
die  of  the  strangeness  of  it.  One  goes  in  a  gondola 
.  .  .  warmth,  stillness,  stars.  .  .  .  There  are  no 
horses  in  Venice,  and  so  there  is  a  silence  here  as  in 
the  open  country.  Gondolas  flit  to  and  fro,  .  .  .  then 
a  gondola  glides  by,  hung  with  lanterns.  In  it  are  a 
double-bass,  violins,  a  guitar,  a  mandolin  and  cornet, 
two  or  three  ladies,  several  men,  and  one  hears 
singing  and  music.  They  sing  from  operas.  What 
voices!  One  goes  on  a  little  further  and  again  meets 
a  boat  with  singers,  and  then  again,  and  the  air  is  full, 
till  midnight,  of  the  mingled  strains  of  violins  and 
tenor  voices,  and  all  sorts  of  heart-stirring  sounds. 

Merezhkovsky,  whom  I  have  met  here,  is  off  his 
head  with  ecstasy.  For  us  poor  and  oppressed  Rus- 
sians it  is  easy  to  go  out  of  our  minds  here  in  a 
world  of  beauty,  wealth,  and  freedom.     One  longs  to 


238  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

remain  here  for  ever,  and  when  one  stands  in  the 
churches  and  listens  to  the  organ  one  longs  to  become 
a  Catholic. 

The  tombs  of  Canova  and  Titian  are  magnificent. 
Here  they  bury  great  artists  like  kings  in  churches; 
here  they  do  not  despise  art  as  with  us ;  the  churches 
provide  a  shelter  for  pictures  and  statues  however 
naked  they  may  be. 

In  the  Palace  of  the  Doges  there  is  a  picture  in 
which  there  are  about  ten  thousand  human  figures. 

To-day  is  Sunday.  There  will  be  a  band  playing 
in  St.  Mark's  Square.   .   .   . 

If  you  ever  happen  to  come  to  Venice  it  will  be  the 
best  thing  in  your  life.  You  ought  to  see  the  glass 
here!  Your  bottles^  are  so  hideous  compared  with 
the  things  here,  that  it  makes  one  sick  to  think  of 
them. 

I  will  write  again;  meanwhile,  good-bye. 


To  Madame  Kiselyov. 


Venice, 
March  25. 


I  am  in  Venice.  You  may  put  me  in  a  madhouse. 
Gondolas,  St.  Mark's  Square,  water,  stars,  Italian 
women,  serenades,  mandolins,  Falernian  wine — in 
fact  all  is  lost! 

Don't  remember  evil  against  me. 

The  shade  of  the  lovely  Desdemona  sends  a  smile 
to  the  District  Captain. 

Greetings  to  all.  Antonio. 

The  Jesuits  send  their  love  to  you. 

*  His  brother  Ivan  was  teaching  in  a  school  attached  to  a 
glass  factory. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  239 


To  HIS  Sister. 

Venice, 
March  25,  1891. 

Bewitching  blue-eyed  Venice  sends  her  greetings 
to  all  of  you.  Oh,  signori  and  signorine,  what  an 
exquisite  town  this  Venice  is !  Imagine  a  town  con- 
sisting of  houses  and  churches  such  as  you  have  never 
seen;  an  intoxicating  architecture,  everything  as 
graceful  and  light  as  the  birdlike  gondola.  Such 
houses  and  churches  can  only  be  built  by  people 
possessed  of  immense  artistic  and  musical  taste  and 
endowed  with  a  lion-like  temperament.  Now  imagine 
in  the  streets  and  alleys,  instead  of  pavement,  water; 
imagine  that  there  is  not  one  horse  in  the  town;  that 
instead  of  cabmen  you  see  gondoliers  on  their  wonder- 
ful boats,  light,  delicate  long-beaked  birds  which 
scarcely  seem  to  touch  the  water  and  tremble  at  the 
tiniest  wave.  And  all  from  earth  to  sky  bathed  in 
sunshine. 

There  are  streets  as  broad  as  the  Nevsky,  and  others 
in  which  you  can  bar  the  way  by  stretching  out  your 
arms.  The  centre  of  the  town  is  St.  Mark's  Square 
with  the  celebrated  cathedral  of  the  same  name. 
The  cathedral  is  magnificent,  especially  on  the  out- 
side. Beside  it  is  the  Palace  of  the  Doges  where 
Othello  made  his  confession  before  the  senators. 

In  short,  there  is  not  a  spot  that  does  not  call  up 
memories  and  touch  the  heart.  For  instance,  the 
little  house  where  Desdemona  lived  makes  an  im- 
pression that  is  difficult  to  shake  off.  The  very  best 
time  in  Venice  is  the  evening.  First  the  stars;  sec- 
ondly, the  long  canals  in  which  the  lights  and  stars 
are  reflected ;  thirdly,  gondolas,  gondolas,  and  gondo- 


240  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

las ;  when  it  is  dark  they  seem  to  be  ahve.  Fourthly, 
one  wants  to  cry  because  on  all  sides  one  hears 
music  and  superb  singing.  A  gondola  glides  up 
hung  with  many-coloured  lanterns;  there  is  light 
enough  for  one  to  distinguish  a  double-bass,  a  guitar, 
a  mandolin,  a  violin.  .  .  .  Then  another  gondola 
like  it.  .  .  .  Men  and  women  sing,  and  how  they 
sing!      It's  quite  an  opera. 

Fifthly,  it's  warm. 

In  short,  the  man's  a  fool  who  does  not  go  to 
Venice.  Living  is  cheap  here.  Board  and  lodging 
costs  eighteen  francs  a  week — that  is,  six  roubles  each 
or  twenty-five  roubles  a  month.  A  gondolier  asks  a 
franc  for  an  hour — that  is,  thirty  kopecks.  Admis- 
sion to  the  academies,  museums,  and  so  on,  is  free. 
The  Crimea  is  ten  times  as  expensive,  and  the  Crimea 
beside  Venice  is  a  cuttle-fish  beside  a  whale. 

I  am  afraid  Father  is  angry  with  me  for  not  having 
said  good-bye  to  him.     I  ask  his  forgiveness. 

What  glass  there  is  here !  what  mirrors !  Why  am 
I  not  a  millionaire!  .  .  .  Next  year  let  us  all  take 
a  summer  cottage  in  Venice. 

The  air  is  full  of  the  vibration  of  church  bells :  my 
dear  Tunguses,  let  us  all  embrace  Catholicism.  If 
only  you  knew  how  lovely  the  organs  are  in  the 
churches,  what  sculptures  there  are  here,  what  Italian 
women  on  their  knees  with  prayer-books! 

Keep  well  and  don't  forget  me,  a  sinner. 

A  picturesque  railway  line,  of  which  I  have  been 
told  a  great  deal,  runs  from  Vienna  to  Venice.  But  I 
was  disappointed  in  the  journey.  The  mountains, 
the  precipices,  and  the  snowy  crests  I  have  seen  in  the 
Caucasus  and  Ceylon  are  far  more  impressive  than 
here.     Addio. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  241 

Venice, 
March  26,  1891. 

It  is  pelting  cats  and  dogs.  Venetia  bella  has 
ceased  to  be  bella.  The  water  excites  a  feehng  of 
dejected  dreariness,  and  one  longs  to  hasten  some- 
where where  there  is  sun. 

The  rain  has  reminded  me  of  my  raincoat  (the 
leather  one)  ;  I  believe  the  rats  have  gnawed  it  a  little. 
If  they  have,  send  it  to  be  mended  as  soon  as  you 
can.   ... 

How  is  Signor  Mongoose?  I  am  afraid  every  day 
of  hearing  that  he  is  dead. 

In  describing  the  cheapness  of  Venetian  life  yester- 
day, I  overdid  it  a  bit.  It  is  Madame  Merezhkovsky's 
fault ;  she  told  me  that  she  and  her  husband  paid  only 
six  francs  per  week  each.  But  instead  of  per  week, 
read  per  day.  Anyway,  it  is  cheap.  The  franc  here 
goes  as  far  as  a  rouble. 

We  are  going  to  Florence. 

May  the  Holy  Mother  bless  you. 

I  have  seen  Titian's  Madonna.  It's  very  fine. 
But  it  is  a  pity  that  here  fine  works  are  mixed  up  side 
by  side  with  worthless  things,  that  have  been  pre- 
served and  not  flung  away  simply  from  the  spirit  of 
conservatism  all-present  in  such  creatures  of  habit  as 
messieurs  les  hommes.  There  are  many  pictures  the 
long  life  of  which  is  quite  incomprehensible. 

The  house  where  Desdemona  used  to  live  is  to  let. 

Bologna, 
March  28,  1891. 

I  am  in  Bologna,  a  town  remarkable  for  its  arcades, 
slanting  towers,  and  Raphael's  pictures  of  "Cecilia." 
We  are  going  on  to-day  to  Florence. 


242  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Florence, 
March  29,  1891. 

I  am  in  Florence.  I  am  worn  out  with  racing  about 
to  museums  and  churches.  I  have  seen  the  Venus  of 
Medici,  and  I  think  that  if  she  were  dressed  in  modern 
clothes  she  would  be  hideous,  especially  about  the 
waist. 

The  sky  is  overcast,  and  Italy  without  sun  is  like 
a  face  in  a  mask. 


P.  S. — Dante's  monument  is  fine. 


Florence, 
March  30,  1891. 


I  am  in  Florence.  To-morrow  we  are  going  to 
Rome.  It's  cold.  We  have  the  spleen.  You  can't 
take  a  step  in  Florence  without  coming  to  a  picture- 
shop  or  a  statue-shop. 

P.  S. — Send  my  watch  to  be  mended. 

To  Madame  Kiselyov. 

Rome, 
April  1,  1891. 

The  Pope  of  Rome  charges  me  to  congratulate  you 
on  your  name-day  and  wish  you  as  much  money  as 
he  has  rooms.  He  has  eleven  thousand!  Strolling 
about  the  Vatican  I  was  nearlv  dead  with  exhaustion, 
and  when  I  got  home  I  felt  that  my  legs  were  made  of 
cotton-wool. 

I  am  dining  at  the  table  d'hote.  Can  you  imagine 
just  opposite  me  are  sitting  two  Dutch  girls:  one  of 
them  is  like  Pushkin's  Tatyana,  and  the  other  like  her 
sister  Olga.     I  watch  them  all  through  dinner,  and 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  243 

imagine  a  neat,  clean  little  house  with  a  turret,  ex- 
cellent butter,  superb  Dutch  cheese,  Dutch  herrings, 
a  benevolent-looking  pastor,  a  sedate  teacher,  .  .  . 
and  I  feel  I  should  like  to  marry  a  Dutch  girl  and  be 
depicted  with  her  on  a  tea-tray  beside  the  little  white 
house. 

I  have  seen  everything  and  dragged  myself  every- 
where I  was  told  to  go.  What  was  offered  me  to 
sniff  at,  I  sniffed  at.  But  meanwhile  I  feel  nothing 
but  exhaustion  and  a  craving  for  cabbage-soup  and 
buckwheat  porridge.  I  was  enchanted  by  Venice, 
beside  myself;  but  since  I  have  left  it,  it  has  been 
nothing  but  Baedeker  and  bad  weather. 

Good-bye  for  now,  Marya  Vladimirovna,  and  the 
Lord  God  keep  you.  Humble  respects  from  me  and 
the  other  Pope  to  his  Honour,  Vassilisa  and  Elizaveta 
Alexandrovna. 

Neckties  are  marvellously  cheap  here.  I  think  I 
may  take  to  eating  them.     They  are  a  franc  a  pair. 

To-morrow  I  am  going  to  Naples.  Pray  that  I  may 
meet  there  a  beautiful  Russian  lady,  if  possible  a 
widow  or  a  divorced  wife. 

In  the  guide-books  it  says  that  a  love  affair  is  an 
essential  condition  for  a  tour  in  Italy.  Well,  hang 
them  all!  I  am  ready  for  anything.  If  there  must 
be  a  love  affair,  so  be  it. 

Don't  forget  your  sinful,  but  sincerely  devoted, 

Anton  Chekhov. 

My  respects  to  the  starlings. 


244  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

To  HIS  Sister. 

Rome, 
April  1,  1891. 

When  I  got  to  Rome  I  went  to  the  post-office  and 
did  not  find  a  single  letter.  Suvorin  has  got  several 
letters.  I  made  up  my  mind  to  pay  you  out,  not  to 
write  to  you  at  all — but  there,  God  bless  you!  I  am 
not  so  very  fond  of  letters,  but  when  one  is  travelling 
nothing  is  so  bad  as  uncertainty.  How  have  you 
settled  the  summer  villa  question?  Is  the  mongoose 
alive?     And  so  on  and  so  on. 

I  have  been  in  St.  Peter's,  in  the  Capitol,  in  the 
Coliseum,  in  the  Forum — I  have  even  been  in  a  cafe- 
chantant,  but  did  not  derive  from  it  the  gratification 
I  had  expected.  The  weather  is  a  drawback,  it  is 
raining.  I  am  hot  in  my  autumn  overcoat,  and  cold 
in  my  summer  one. 

Travelling  is  very  cheap.  One  may  pay  a  visit  to 
Italy  with  only  four  hundred  roubles  and  go  back 
with  purchases.  If  I  were  travelling  alone  or  with 
Ivan,  I  should  have  brought  away  the  conviction  that 
travelling  in  Italy  was  much  cheaper  than  travelling 
in  the  Caucasus.  But  alas!  I  am  with  the  Suvorins. 
...  In  Venice  we  lived  in  the  best  of  hotels  like 
Doges;  here  in  Rome  we  live  like  Cardinals,  for  we 
have  taken  a  salon  of  what  was  once  the  palace  of 
Cardinal  Conti,  now  the  Hotel  Minerva;  two  huge 
drawing-rooms,  chandeliers,  carpets,  open  fireplaces, 
and  all  sorts  of  useless  rubbish,  costing  us  forty  francs 
a  day. 

My  back  aches,  and  the  soles  of  my  feet  burn  from 
tramping  about.     It's  awful  how  we  walk ! 

It  seems  odd  to  me  that  Levitan  did  not  like  Italy. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  245 

It's  a  fascinating  country.  If  I  were  a  solitary  per- 
son, an  artist,  and  had  money,  I  should  live  here  in 
the  winter.  You  see,  Italy,  apart  from  its  natural 
scenery  and  warmth,  is  the  one  country  in  which  you 
feel  convinced  that  art  is  really  supreme  over  every- 
thing, and  that  conviction  gives  one  courage. 


Naples, 
April  4,  1891. 

I  arrived  in  Naples,  went  to  the  post-office  and 
found  there  five  letters  from  home,  for  which  I  am 
very  grateful  to  you  all.  Well  done,  relations! 
Even  Vesuvius  is  so  touched  it  has  gone  out. 

Vesuvius  hides  its  top  in  clouds  and  can  only  be 
seen  well  in  the  evening.  By  day  the  sky  is  overcast. 
We  are  staying  on  the  sea-front  and  have  a  view  of 
everything:  the  sea,  Vesuvius,  Capri,  Sorrento.  .  .  . 
We  drove  in  the  daytime  up  to  the  monastery  of  St. 
Martini:  the  view  from  here  is  such  as  I  have  never 
seen  before,  a  marvellous  panorama.  I  saw  some- 
thing like  it  at  Hong  Kong  when  I  went  up  the 
mountain  in  the  railway. 

In  Naples  there  is  a  magnificent  arcade.  And  the 
shops ! !  The  shops  make  me  quite  giddy.  What 
brilliance!  You,  Masha,  and  you,  Lika,  would  be 
rabid  with  delight. 

****** 

There  is  a  wonderful  aquarium  in  Naples.  There 
are  even  sharks  and  squids.  When  a  squid  (an 
octopus)  devours  some  animals  it's  a  revolting  sight. 

I  have  been  to  a  barber's  and  watched  a  young 
man  having  his  beard  clipped  for  a  whole  hour.  He 
was  probably  engaged  to  be  married  or  else  a  card- 


246  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

sharper.  At  the  barber's  the  ceiling  and  all  the  four 
walls  were  made  of  looking-glass,  so  that  you  feel  that 
you  are  not  at  a  hairdresser's  but  at  the  Vatican  where 
there  are  eleven  thousand  rooms.  They  cut  your  hair 
wonderfully. 

I  shan't  bring  you  any  presents,  as  you  don't  write 
to  me  about  the  summer  villa  and  the  mongoose.  I 
bought  you  a  watch,  Masha,  but  I  have  cast  it  to  the 
swine.     But  there,  God  forgive  you! 

P.  S. — I  shall  be  back  by  Easter,  come  and  meet 
me  at  the  station. 

Naples, 
April  7,  1891. 

Yesterday  I  went  to  Pompeii  and  went  over  it.  As 
you  know,  it  is  a  Roman  town  buried  under  the  lava 
and  ashes  of  Vesuvius  in  79  a.d.  I  walked  about  the 
streets  of  the  town  and  saw  the  houses,  the  temples, 
the  theatre,  the  squares.  ...  I  saw  and  marvelled 
at  the  faculty  of  the  Romans  for  combining  simplicity 
with  convenience  and  beauty.  After  viewing  Pom- 
peii, I  lunched  at  a  restaurant  and  then  decided  to  go 
to  Vesuvius.  The  excellent  red  wine  I  had  drunk  had 
a  great  deal  to  do  with  this  decision.  I  had  to  ride  on 
horseback  to  the  foot  of  Vesuvius.  I  have  in  conse- 
quence to-day  a  sensation  in  some  parts  of  my  mortal 
frame  as  though  I  had  been  in  the  Third  Division,  and 
had  there  been  flogged.  What  an  agonising  business 
it  is  climbing  up  Vesuvius!  Ashes,  mountains  of 
lava,  solid  waves  of  molten  minerals,  mounds  of  earth, 
and  every  sort  of  abomination.  You  take  one  step 
forward  and  fall  half  a  step  back,  the  soles  of  your 
feet  hurt  you,  your  breathing  is  oppressed.  .  .  . 
You  go  on  and  on  and  on,  and  it  is  still  a  long  way  to 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  247 

the  top.  You  wonder  whether  to  turn  back,  but  you 
are  ashamed  to  turn  back,  you  would  be  laughed  at. 
The  ascent  began  at  half-past  two,  and  ended  at  six. 
The  crater  of  Vesuvius  is  a  great  many  yards  in 
diameter.  I  stood  on  its  edge  and  looked  down  as 
into  a  cup.  The  soil  around,  covered  by  a  layer  of 
sulphur,  was  smoking  vigorously.  From  the  crater 
rose  white  stinking  smoke;  spurts  of  hot  water  and 
red-hot  stones  fly  out  while  Satan  lies  snoring  under 
cover  of  the  smoke.  Tlie  noise  is  rather  mixed,  you 
hear  in  it  the  beating  of  breakers  and  the  roar  of 
thunder,  and  the  rumble  of  the  railway  line  and  the 
falling  of  planks.  It  is  very  terrible,  and  at  the  same 
time  one  has  an  impulse  to  jump  right  into  the  crater. 
I  believe  in  hell  now.  The  lava  has  such  a  high  tem- 
perature that  copper  coins  melt  in  it. 

Coming  down  was  as  horrid  as  going  up.  You 
sink  up  to  your  knees  in  ashes.  I  was  fearfully  tired. 
I  went  back  on  horseback  through  a  little  village  and 
by  houses;  there  was  a  glorious  fragrance  and  the 
moon  was  shining.  I  sniffed,  gazed  at  the  moon,  and 
thought  of  her — that  is,  of  Lika  L. 

All  the  summer,  noble  gentlemen,  we  shall  have  no 
money,  and  the  thought  of  that  spoils  my  appetite. 
I  have  got  into  debt  for  a  thousand  for  a  tour,  which 
I  could  have  made  solo  for  three  hundred  roubles. 
All  my  hopes  now  are  in  the  fools  of  amateurs  who  are 
going  to  act  my  "Bear." 

Have  you  taken  a  house  for  the  holidays,  signori? 
You  treat  me  piggishly,  you  write  nothing  to  me,  and 
I  don't  know  what's  going  on,  and  how  things  are  at 
home. 

Humble  respects  to  you  all.  Take  care  of  your- 
selves, and  don't  completely  forget  me. 


248  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


Monte  Carlo, 
April  13,  1891. 

I  am  writing  to  you  from  Monte  Carlo,  from  the 
very  place  where  they  play  roulette.  I  can't  tell  you 
how  thrilling  the  game  is.  First  of  all  I  won  eighty 
francs,  then  I  lost,  then  I  won  again,  and  in  the  end 
was  left  with  a  loss  of  forty  francs.  I  have  twenty 
francs  left,  I  shall  go  and  try  my  luck  again.  I  have 
been  here  since  the  morning,  and  it  is  twelve  o'clock 
at  night.  If  I  had  money  to  spare  I  believe  I  should 
spend  the  whole  year  gambling  and  walking  about  the 
magnificent  halls  of  the  casino.  It  is  interesting  to 
watch  the  ladies  who  lose  thousands.  This  morning 
a  young  lady  lost  5000  francs.  The  tables  with  piles 
of  gold  are  interesting  too.  In  fact  it  is  beyond  all 
words.  This  charming  Monte  Carlo  is  extremely  like 
a  fine  .  .  .  den  of  thieves.  The  suicide  of  losers  is 
quite  a  regular  thing. 

Suvorin  fils  lost  300  francs. 

We  shall  soon  see  each  other.  I  am  weary  of 
wandering  over  the  face  of  the  earth.  One  must 
draw  the  line.     My  heels  are  sore  as  it  is. 


To  HIS  Brother  Mihail. 

Nice, 
Monday  in  Holy  Week,  April,  1891. 

We  are  staying  in  Nice,  on  the  sea-front.  The  sun 
is  shining,  it  is  warm,  green  and  fragrant,  but  windy. 
An  hour's  journey  from  Nice  is  the  famous  Monaco. 
There  is  Monte  Carlo,  where  roulette  is  played.  Im- 
agine the  rooms  of  the  Hall  of  Nobihty  but  hand- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  249 

somer,  loftier  and  larger.  There  are  big  tables,  and 
on  the  tables  roulette — which  I  will  describe  to  you 
when  I  get  home.  The  day  before  yesterday  I  went 
over  there,  played  and  lost.  The  game  is  fearfully 
fascinating.  After  losing,  Suvorin  fils  and  I  fell  to 
thinking  it  over,  and  thought  out  a  system  which 
would  ensure  one's  winning.  We  went  yesterday, 
taking  five  hundred  francs  each;  at  the  first  staking 
I  won  two  gold  pieces,  then  again  and  again;  my 
waistcoat  pockets  bulged  with  gold.  I  had  in  hand 
French  money  even  of  the  year  1808,  as  well  as  Bel- 
gian, Italian,  Greek,  and  Austrian  coins.  ...  I 
have  never  before  seen  so  much  gold  and  silver.  I 
began  playing  at  five  o'clock  and  by  ten  I  had  not  a 
single  franc  in  my  pocket,  and  the  only  thing  left  me 
was  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  I  had  my  return 
ticket  to  Nice.  So  there  it  is,  my  friends !  You  will 
say,  of  course:  "What  a  mean  thing  to  do!  We  are 
so  poor,  while  he  out  there  plays  roulette."  Per- 
fectly just,  and  I  give  you  permission  to  slay  me.  But 
I  personally  am  much  pleased  with  myself.  Anyway, 
now  I  can  tell  my  grandchildren  that  I  have  played 
roulette,  and  know  the  feeling  which  is  excited  by 
gambling. 

Beside  the  Casino  where  roulette  is  played  there  is 
another  swindle — the  restaurants.  They  fleece  one 
frightfully  and  feed  one  magnificently.  Every  dish 
is  a  regular  work  of  art,  before  which  one  is  expected 
to  bow  one's  knee  in  homage  and  to  be  too  awe- 
stricken  to  eat  it.  Every  morsel  is  rigged  out  with 
lots  of  artichokes,  truffles,  and  nightingales'  tongues 
of  all  sorts.  And,  good  Lord!  how  contemptible  and 
loathsome  this  life  is  with  its  artichokes,  its  palms, 
and  its  smell  of  orange  blossoms !      I  love  wealth  and 


250  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

luxury,  but  the  luxury  here,  the  luxury  of  the  gam- 
bling saloon,  reminds  one  of  a  luxurious  water-closet. 
There  is  something  in  the  atmosphere  that  offends 
one's  sense  of  decency  and  vulgarizes  the  scenery,  the 
sound  of  the  sea,  the  moon. 

Yesterday — Sunday — I  went  to  the  Russian  church 
here.  What  was  peculiar  was  the  use  of  palm- 
branches  instead  of  willows ;  and  instead  of  boy  chor- 
isters a  choir  of  ladies,  which  gives  the  singing  an 
operatic  effect.  They  put  foreign  money  in  the  plate ; 
the  verger  and  beadle  speak  French,  and  so  on.   .   .   . 

Of  all  the  places  I  have  been  in  hitherto  Venice  has 
left  me  the  loveliest  memories.  Rome  on  the  whole 
is  rather  like  Harkov,  and  Naples  is  filthy.  And  the 
sea  does  not  attract  me,  as  I  got  tired  of  it  last  Novem- 
ber and  December. 

I  feel  as  though  I  have  been  travelling  for  a  whole 
year.  I  had  scarcely  got  back  from  Sahalin  when  I 
went  to  Petersburg,  and  then  to  Petersburg  again, 
and  to  Italy.   .   .   . 

If  I  don't  manage  to  get  home  by  Easter,  when  you 
break  the  fast,  remember  me  in  your  prayers,  and 
receive  my  congratulations  from  a  distance,  and  my 
assurance  that  I  shall  miss  you  all  horribly  on  Easter 
night. 


To  HIS  Sister. 


Paris, 
April  21,  1891. 


To-day  is  Easter.  So  Christ  is  risen!  It's  my 
first  Easter  away  from  home. 

I  arrived  in  Paris  on  Friday  morning  and  at  once 
went  to  the  Exhibition.     Yes,  the  Eiffel  Tower  is  very 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  251 

very  high.  The  other  exhibition  buildings  I  saw 
only  from  the  outside,  as  they  were  occupied  by 
cavalry  brought  there  in  anticipation  of  disorders. 
On  Friday  they  expected  riots.  The  people  flocked 
in  crowds  about  the  streets,  shouting  and  whistling, 
greatly  excited,  while  the  police  kept  dispersing  them. 
To  disperse  a  big  crowd  a  dozen  policemen  are  suffi- 
cient here.  The  police  make  a  combined  attack,  and 
the  crowd  runs  like  mad.  In  one  of  these  attacks  the 
honour  was  vouchsafed  to  me — a  policeman  caught 
hold  of  me  under  my  shoulder,  and  pushed  me  in  front 
of  him. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  movement,  the  streets 
were  swarming  and  surging.  Noise,  hubbub.  The 
pavements  are  filled  with  little  tables,  and  at  the 
tables  sit  Frenchmen  who  feel  as  though  they  were  at 
home  in  the  street.  A  magnificent  people.  There  is 
no  describing  Paris,  though ;  I  will  put  off  the  descrip- 
tion of  it  till  I  get  home. 

I  heard  the  midnight  service  in  the  Church  of  the 
Embassy.   .   .   . 

I  am  afraid  you  have  no  money. 

Misha,  get  my  pince-nez  mended,  for  the  salvation 
of  your  soul!  I  am  simply  a  martyr  without  spec- 
tacles. I  went  to  the  Salon  and  couldn't  see  half  the 
pictures,  thanks  to  my  short  sight.  By  the  way,  the 
Russian  artists  are  far  more  serious  than  the  French. 
...  In  comparison  with  the  landscape  painters  I 
saw  here  yesterday  Levitan  is  a  king.   .   .   . 


252  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


Paris, 

April  24. 


A  change  again.  One  of  the  Russian  sculptors  liv- 
ing in  Paris  has  undertaken  to  do  a  bust  of  Suvorin^ 
and  this  will  keep  us  till  Saturday. 

.  .  .  How  are  you  managing  without  money? 
Bear  it  till  Thursday. 

Imagine  my  delight.  I  was  in  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  just  at  the  time  of  the  sitting  when  the 
Minister  for  Internal  Affairs  was  called  to  account  for 
the  irregularities  which  the  government  had  ventured 
upon  in  putting  down  the  riots  in  Fourmis  (there  were 
many  killed  and  wounded) .  It  was  a  stormy  and  ex- 
tremely interesting  sitting. 

Men  who  tie  boa-constrictors  round  their  bodies, 
ladies  who  kick  up  to  the  ceiling,  flying  people,  lions, 
cafe-chantants^  dinners  and  lunches  begin  to  sicken 
me.     It  is  time  I  was  home.     I  am  longing  to  work. 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 


Alexin, 
May  7,  1891. 


The  summer  villa  is  all  right.  There  are  w^oods 
and  the  Oka:  it  is  far  away  in  the  wilds,  it  is  warm, 
nightingales  sing,  and  so  on.  It  is  quiet  and  peace- 
ful, and  in  bad  weather  it  will  be  dull  and  depressing 
here.  After  travelling  abroad,  life  at  a  summer  villa 
seems  a  little  mawkish.  I  feel  as  though  I  had  been 
taken  prisoner  and  put  into  a  fortress.  But  I  am  con- 
tented all  the  same.  In  Moscow  I  received  from  the 
Society  of  Dramatic  Authors  not  two  hundred  roubles, 
as  I  expected,  but  three  hundred.  It's  very  kind  on 
the  part  of  fortune. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  253 

Well,  my  clear  sir,  I  owe  you,  even  if  we  adopt  your 
reckoning,  not  less  than  eight  hundred  roubles.  In 
June  or  July,  when  my  money  will  be  at  the  shop,  I 
will  write  to  Zandrok  to  send  all  that  comes  to  me  to 
you  in  Feodosia,  and  do  not  try  and  prevent  me.  I 
give  you  my  word  of  honour  that  when  I  have  paid 
my  debts  and  settled  with  you,  I'll  accept  a  loan  of 
2,000  from  you.  Do  not  imagine  that  it  is  dis- 
agreeable to  me  to  be  in  your  debt.  I  lend  other 
people  money,  and  so  I  feel  I  have  the  right  to  borrow 
money,  but  I  am  afraid  of  getting  into  difficulties  and 
the  habit  of  being  in  debt.  You  know  I  owe  your 
firm  a  devilish  lot. 

There  is  a  fine  view  from  my  window.  Trains  are 
continually  passing.    There  is  a  bridge  across  the  Oka. 

Alexin, 
May  10,  1891. 

Yes,  you  are  right,  my  soul  needs  balsam.  I 
should  read  now  with  pleasure,  even  with  joy,  some- 
thing serious,  not  merely  about  myself  but  things  in 
general.  I  pine  for  serious  reading,  and  recent  Rus- 
sian criticism  does  not  nourish  but  simply  irritates 
me.  I  could  read  with  enthusiasm  something  new 
about  Pushkin  or  Tolstoy.  That  would  be  balsam 
for  my  idle  mind. 

I  am  homesick  for  Venice  and  Florence  too,  and 
am  ready  to  climb  Vesuvius  again ;  Bologna  has  been 
effaced  from  my  memory  and  grown  dim.  As  for 
Nice  and  Paris,  when  I  recall  them  'T  look  on  my 
life  with  loathing." 

In  the  last  number  of  The  Messenger  of  Foreign 
Literature  there  is  a  story  by  Ouida,  translated  from 
the   English   by   our   Mihail.      Why   don't   I   know 


254  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

foreign  languages?  It  seems  to  me  I  could  translate 
magnificently.  When  I  read  anyone  else's  transla- 
tion I  keep  altering  and  transposing  the  words  in  my 
brain,  and  the  result  is  something  light,  ethereal,  like 
lace  work. 

On  Mondays,  Tuesdays,  and  Wednesdays  I  write 
my  Sahalin  book,  on  the  other  days,  except  Sunday, 
my  novel,  and  on  Sundays,  short  stories.  I  work  with 
zest.  The  weather  has  been  superb  every  day;  the 
site  of  our  summer  villa  is  dry  and  healthy.  There  is 
a  lot  of  woodland.  There  are  a  lot  of  fish  and  cray- 
fish in  the  Oka.  I  see  the  trains  and  the  steamers. 
Altogether  if  it  were  not  for  being  somewhat  cramped 
I  should  be  very  very  much  pleased  with  it. 

*  4f  *  *  *  * 

I  don't  intend  to  get  married.  I  should  like  to  be 
a  little  bald  old  man  sitting  at  a  big  table  in  a  fine 
study.   .   .  . 

Alexin, 
May  13,  1891. 

I  am  going  to  write  you  a  Christmas  story — that's 
certain.  Two,  indeed,  if  you  like.  I  sit  and  write 
and  write  .  .  .;  at  last  I  have  set  to  work.  I  am 
only  sorry  that  my  cursed  teeth  are  aching  and  my 
stomach  is  out  of  order. 

I  am  a  dilatory  but  productive  author.  By  the 
time  I  am  forty  I  shall  have  hundreds  of  volumes, 
so  that  I  can  open  a  bookshop  with  nothing  but  my 
own  works.  To  have  a  lot  of  books  and  to  have 
nothing  else  is  a  horrible  disgrace. 

My  dear  friend,  haven't  you  in  your  library 
Tagantsev's  "Criminal  Law"?  If  you  have,  couldn't 
you  send  it  me?     I  would  buy  it,  but  I  am  now 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  255 

"a  poor  relation" — a  beggar  and  as  poor  as  Sidor's 
goat.  Would  you  telephone  to  your  shop,  too,  to 
send  me,  on  account  of  favours  to  come,  two  books: 
"The  Laws  relating  to  Exiles,"  and  "The  Laws  re- 
lating to  Persons  under  Police  Control."  Don't  im- 
agine that  I  want  to  become  a  procurator;  I  want 
these  works  for  my  Sahalin  book.  I  am  going  to- 
direct  my  attack  chiefly  against  life  sentences,  in 
which  I  see  the  root  of  all  the  evils;  and  against  the 
laws  dealing  with  exiles,  which  are  fearfully  out  of 
date  and  contradictory. 


To  L.  S.  MiziNOv. 


Alexin, 
May  17,  1891. 


Golden,  mother-of-pearl,  and  fil  d'Ecosse  Likal 
The  mongoose  ran  away  the  day  before  yesterday, 
and  will  never  come  back  again.  It  is  dead.  That 
is  the  first  thing. 

The  second  thing  is,  that  we  are  moving  our  resi- 
dence to  the  upper  storey  of  the  house  of  B.  K. — the 
man  who  gave  you  milk  to  drink  and  forgot  to  give  you 
strawberries.  We  will  let  you  know  the  day  we  move 
in  due  time.  Come  to  smell  the  flowers,  to  walk,  to 
fish,  and  to  blubber.  Ah,  lovely  Lika!  When  you 
bedewed  my  right  shoulder  with  your  tears  (I  have 
taken  out  the  spots  with  benzine),  and  when  slice 
after  slice  you  ate  our  bread  and  meat,  we  greedily 
devoured  your  face  and  head  with  our  eyes.  Ah, 
Lika,  Lika,  diabolical  beauty!   .   .   . 

When  you  are  at  the  Alhambra  with  Trofimov  I 
hope  you  may  accidentally  jab  out  his  eye  with  your 
fork. 


256  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Alexin, 
May  18,  1891. 

...  I  get  up  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning;  evi- 
dently when  I  am  old  I  shall  get  up  at  four.  My 
forefathers  all  got  up  very  early,  before  the  cock. 
And  I  notice  people  who  get  up  very  early  are  horribly 
fussy.  So  I  suppose  I  shall  be  a  fussy,  restless  old 
man.   .   .   . 

BOGIMOVO, 

May  20. 

.  .  .  The  carp  bite  capitally.  I  forgot  all  my  sor- 
rows yesterday;  first  I  sat  by  the  pond  and  caught 
carp,  and  then  by  the  old  mill  and  caught  perch. 

.  .  .  The  last  two  proclamations — about  the 
Siberian  railway  and  the  exiles — pleased  me  very 
much.  The  Siberian  railway  is  called  a  national  con- 
cern, and  the  tone  of  the  proclamation  guarantees 
its  speedy  completion;  and  convicts  who  have  com- 
pleted such  and  such  terms  as  settlers  are  allowed 
to  return  to  Russia  without  the  right  to  live  in  the 
provinces  of  Petersburg  and  Moscow.  The  news- 
papers have  let  this  pass  unnoticed,  and  yet  it  is 
something  which  has  never  been  in  Russia  before — it 
is  the  first  step  towards  abolishing  the  life  sentence 
which  has  so  long  weighed  on  the  public  conscience 
as  unjust  and  cruel  in  the  extreme.   .   .   . 

BOGIMOVO, 
May  27,  4  o'clock  in  the  Morning. 

The  mongoose  has  run  away  into  the  woods  and 
has  not  come  back.  It  is  cold.  I  have  no  money. 
But  nevertheless,  I  don't  envy  you.  One  cannot  live 
in  town  now,  it  is  both  dreary  and  unwholesome.     I 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  257 

should  like  you  to  be  sitting  from  morning  till  din- 
ner-time in  this  verandah,  drinking  tea  and  writing 
something  artistic,  a  play  or  something;  and  after 
dinner  till  evening,  fishing  and  thinking  peaceful 
thoughts.  You  have  long  ago  earned  the  right  which 
is  denied  you  now  by  all  sorts  of  chance  circum- 
stances, and  it  seems  to  me  shameful  and  unjust  that 
1  should  live  more  peacefully  than  you.  Is  it  pos- 
sible that  you  will  stay  all  June  in  town?  It's  really 
terrible.   .   .   . 

...  By  the  way,  read  Grigorovitch's  letter  to 
my  enemy  Anna  Ivanovna.  Let  her  soul  rejoice. 
"Chekhov  belongs  to  the  generation  which  has 
perceptibly  begun  to  turn  away  from  the  West  and 
concentrate  more  closely  on  their  own  world.  .  .  ." 
"Venice  and  Florence  are  nothing  else  than  dull 
towns  for  a  man  of  any  intelligence.  .  .  ."  Merci, 
but  I  don't  understand  persons  of  such  intelligence. 
One  would  have  to  be  a  bull  to  "turn  away  from 
the  West"  on  arriving  for  the  first  time  in  Venice  or 
Florence.  There  is  very  little  intelligence  in  doing 
so.  But  I  should  like  to  know  who  is  taking  the 
trouble  to  announce  to  the  whole  universe  that  I  did 
not  like  foreign  parts.  Good  Lord!  I  never  let  drop 
one  word  about  it. "  I  liked  even  Bologna.  What- 
ever ought  I  to  have  done?  Howled  with  rapture? 
Broken  the  windows?  Embraced  Frenchmen?  Do 
they  say  I  gained  no  ideas?  But  I  fancy  I 
did.   .   .   . 

We  must  see  each  other — or  more  correctly,  I  must 
see  you.  I  am  missing  you  already,  although  to-day 
I  caught  two  hundred  and  fifty-two  carp  and  one 
crayfish. 


258  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

BOGIMOVO, 

June  4,  1891. 

Why  did  you  go  away  so  soon?  I  was  very  dull, 
and  could  not  get  back  into  my  usual  petty  routine 
very  quickly  afterwards.  As  luck  would  have  it, 
after  you  went  away  the  weather  became  warm  and 
magnificent,  and  the  fish  began  to  bite. 

.  .  .  The  mongoose  has  been  found.  A  sports- 
man with  dogs  found  him  on  this  side  of  the  Oka  in 
a  quarry ;  if  there  had  not  been  a  crevice  in  the  quarry 
the  dogs  would  have  torn  the  mongoose  to  pieces. 
It  had  been  astray  in  the  woods  for  eighteen  days. 
In  spite  of  the  climatic  conditions,  which  are  awful 
for  it,  it  had  grown  fat — such  is  the  effect  of  freedom. 
Yes,  my  dear  sir,  freedom  is  a  grand  thing. 

I  advise  you  again  to  go  to  Feodosia  by  the  Volga. 
Anna  Ivanovna  and  you  will  enjoy  it,  and  it  will  be 
new  and  interesting  for  the  children.  If  I  were  free 
I  would  come  with  you.  It's  snug  now  on  those 
Volga  steamers,  they  feed  you  well  and  the  passengers 
are  interesting. 

Forgive  me  for  your  having  been  so  uncomfortable 
with  us.  When  I  am  grown  up  and  order  furniture 
from  Venice,  as  I  certainly  shall  do,  you  won't  have 
such  a  cold  and  rough  time  with  me. 


To  L.  S.  MiziNOv. 

BOGIMOVO, 

June  12,  1891. 
Enchanting,  amazing  Lika! 

Captivated  by  the  Circassian  Levitan,  you  have 
completely  forgotten  that  you  promised  my  brother 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  259 

Ivan  you  would  come  on  the  1st  of  June,  and  you 
do  not  answer  my  sister's  letter  at  all.  I  wrote  to 
you  from  Moscow  to  invite  you,  but  my  letter,  too, 
remained  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  Though 
you  are  received  in  aristocratic  society,  you  have  been 
badly  brought  up  all  the  same,  and  I  don't  regret  hav- 
ing once  chastised  you  with  a  switch.  You  must  un- 
derstand that  expecting  your  arrival  from  day  to  day 
not  only  wearies  us,  but  puts  us  to  expense.  In  an 
ordinary  way  we  only  have  for  dinner  what  is  left  of 
yesterday's  soup,  but  when  we  expect  visitors  we  have 
also  a  dish  of  boiled  beef,  which  we  buy  from  the 
neighbouring  cooks. 

We  have  a  magnificent  garden,  dark  avenues,  snug 
corners,  a  river,  a  mill,  a  boat,  moonlight,  nightin- 
gales, turkeys.  In  the  pond  and  river  there  are  very 
intelligent  frogs.  We  often  go  for  walks,  during 
which  I  usually  close  my  eyes  and  crook  my  right  arm 
in  the  shape  of  a  bread-ring,  imagining  that  you  are 
walking  by  my  side. 

.  .  .  Give  my  greetings  to  Levitan.  Please  ask 
him  not  to  write  about  you  in  every  letter.  In  the 
first  place  it  is  not  magnanimous  on  his  part,  and 
in  the  second,  I  have  no  interest  whatever  in  his 
happiness. 

Be  well  and  happy  and  don't  forget  us.  I  have 
just  received  your  letter,  it  is  filled  from  top  to  bot- 
tom with  such  charming  expressions  as:  "The  devil 
choke  you!"  "The  devil  flay  you ! "  "Anathema!" 
"A  good  smack,"  "rabble,"  "overeaten  myself." 
Your  friends — such  as  Trophim — with  their  cab- 
men's talk  certainly  have  an  improving  influence  on 
you. 

You  may  bathe  and  go  for  evening  walks.     That's 


260  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

all  nonsense.  All  my  inside  is  full  of  coughs,  wet 
and  dry,  but  I  bathe  and  walk  about,  and  yet  I  am 
alive.   .   .  . 


To  L.  S.  MiziNOv. 

(Enclosing  a  photograph  of  a  young  man  inscribed 
"To  Lida  from  Petya") 

Precious  Lida! 

Why  these  reproaches!  I  send  you  my  por- 
trait. To-morrow  we  shall  meet.  Do  not  forget 
your  Petya.     A  thousand  kisses ! ! ! 

I  have  bought  Chekhov's  stories.  How  delightful ! 
Mind  you  buy  them.  Remember  me  to  Masha 
Chekhov.     What  a  darling  you  are! 


To  THE  Same. 

My  dear  Lidia  Stahievna, 

I  love  you  passionately  like  a  tiger,  and  I  offer 
you  my  hand. 

Marshal  of  Nobility, 
GoLOViN  Rtishtchev. 

P.  S. — Answer  me  by  signs.     You  do  squint. 


To  HIS  Sister. 

BOGIMOVO, 

June,  1891. 

Masha!  Make  haste  and  come  home,  as  without 
you  our  intensive  culture  is  going  to  complete  ruin. 
There  is  nothing  to  eat,  the  flies  are  sickening.     The 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  261 

mongoose  has  broken  a  jar  of  jam,  and  so  on,  and  so 
on. 

All  the  summer  visitors  sigh  and  lament  over  your 
absence.  There  is  no  news.  .  .  .  The  spiderman 
is  busy  from  morning  to  night  with  his  spiders.  He 
has  already  described  five  of  the  spider's  legs,  and 
has  only  three  left  to  do.  When  he  has  finished  with 
spiders  he  will  begin  upon  fleas,  which  he  will  catch 
on  his  aunt.  The  K.s  sit  every  evening  at  the  club, 
and  no  hints  from  me  will  prevail  on  them  to  move 
from  the  spot. 

It  is  hot,  there  are  no  mushrooms.  Suvorin  has 
not  come  yet.   .   .   . 

Come  soon  for  it  is  devilishly  dull.  We  have  just 
caught  a  frog  and  given  it  to  the  mongoose.  It  has 
eaten  it. 


To  Madame  Kiselyov. 

Alexin, 
July  20,  1891. 

Greetings,  honoured  Marya  Vladimirovna. 

For  God's  sake  write  what  you  are  doing,  whether 
you  are  all  well  and  how  things  are  in  regard  to  mush- 
rooms and  gudgeon. 

We  are  living  at  Bogimovo  in  the  province  of 
Kaluga.  .  .  .  It's  a  huge  house,  a  fine  park,  the 
inevitable  views,  at  the  sight  of  which  I  am  for  some 
reason  expected  to  say  "Ach!"  A  river,  a  pond 
with  hungry  carp  who  love  to  get  on  to  the  hook,  a 
mass  of  sick  people,  a  smell  of  iodoform,  and  walks 
in  the  evenings.  I  am  busy  with  my  Sahalin;  and 
in  the  intervals,  that  I  may  not  let  my  family  starve, 
I  cherish  the  muse  and  write  stories.     Everything 


262  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

goes  on  in  the  old  way,  there  is  nothing  new.  I  get 
up  every  day  at  five  o'clock,  and  prepare  my  coffee 
with  my  own  hands — a  sign  that  I  have  already  got 
into  old  bachelor  habits  and  am  resigned  to  them. 
Masha  is  painting,  Misha  wears  his  cockade  credita- 
bly, father  talks  about  bishops,  mother  bustles  about 
the  house,  Ivan  fishes.  On  the  same  estate  with  us 
there  is  living  a  zoologist  called  Wagner  and  his 
family,  and  some  Kisilyovs — not  the  Kisilyovs,  but 
others,  not  the  real  ones. 

Wagner  catches  ladybirds  and  spiders,  and  Kisilyov 
the  father  sketches,  as  he  is  an  artist.  We  get  up 
performances,  tableaux-vivants,  and  picnics.  It  is 
very  gay  and  amusing,  but  I  have  only  to  catch  a 
perch  or  find  a  mushroom  for  my  head  to  droop,  and 
my  thoughts  to  be  carried  back  to  the  past,  and  my 
brain  and  soul  begin  in  a  funereal  voice  to  sing  the 
duet  "We  are  parted."  The  "deposed  idol  and  the 
deserted  temple"  rise  up  before  my  imagination,  and 
I  think  devoutly:  "I  would  exchange  all  the  zoolo- 
gists and  great  artists  in  the  world  for  one  little 
Idiotik."  *  The  weather  has  all  the  while  been  hot 
and  dry,  and  only  to-day  there  has  been  a  crash  of 
thunder  and  the  gates  of  heaven  are  open.  One  longs 
to  get  away  somewhere — for  instance,  to  America,  or 
Norway.  ...  Be  well  and  happy,  and  may  the 
good  spirits,  of  whom  there  are  so  many  at  Babkino, 
have  you  in  their  keeping. 

*  Madame  Kisilyov's  son. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  263 

To  HIS  Brother  Alexandr. 

Alexin, 
July,  1891. 

My  Photographic  and  Prolific  Brother! 

I  got  a  letter  from  you  a  long  time  ago  with 
the  photographs  of  Semashko,  but  I  haven't  answered 
till  now,  because  I  have  been  all  the  time  trying  to 
formulate  the  great  thoughts  befitting  my  answer. 
All  our  people  are  alive  and  well,  we  often  talk  of 
you,  and  regret  that  your  prolificness  prevents  you 
from  coming  to  us  here  where  you  would  be  very 
welcome.  Father,  as  I  have  written  to  you  already, 
has  thrown  up  Ivanygortch,  and  is  living  with  us. 
Suvorin  has  been  here  twice;  he  talked  about  you, 
and  caught  fish.  I  am  up  to  my  neck  in  work  with 
Sahalin,  and  other  things  no  less  wearisome  and  hard 
labour.  I  dream  of  winning  forty  thousand,  so  as 
to  cut  myself  off  completely  from  writing,  which  I 
am  sick  of,  to  buy  a  little  bit  of  land  and  live  like 
a  hermit  in  idle  seclusion,  with  you  and  Ivan  in  the 
neighbourhood — I  dream  of  presenting  you  with 
fifteen  acres  each  as  poor  relations.  Altogether  I 
have  a  dreary  existence,  I  am  sick  of  toiling  over 
lines  and  halfpence,  and  old  age  is  creeping  nearer 
and  nearer. 

Your  last  story,  in  my  opinion,  shared  by  Suvorin, 
is  good.     Why  do  you  write  so  little? 

The  zoologist  V.  A.  Wagner,  who  took  his  degree 
with  you,  is  staying  in  the  same  courtyard.  He  is 
writing  a  very  solid  dissertation.  Kisilyov,  the  artist, 
is  living  in  the  same  yard  too.  We  go  walks  to- 
gether in  the  evenings  and  discuss  philosophy.   .   .  . 


264  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

BOGIMOVO, 

July  24,  1891. 

.  .  .  Thanks  for  the  five  kopecks  addition.  Alas, 
it  will  not  settle  my  difficulties!  To  save  up  a  re- 
serve, as  you  write,  and  extricate  myself  from  the 
abyss  of  halfpenny  anxieties  and  petty  terrors,  there 
is  only  one  resource  left  me — an  immoral  one.  To 
marry  a  rich  woman  or  give  out  Anna  Karenin  as  my 
work.  And  as  that  is  impossible  I  dismiss  my  diffi- 
culties in  despair  and  let  things  go  as  they  please. 

You  once  praised  Rod,  a  French  writer,  and  told 
me  Tolstoy  liked  him.  The  other  day  I  happened  to 
read  a  novel  of  his  and  flung  up  my  hands  in  amaze- 
ment. He  is  equivalent  to  our  Matchtet,  only  a  lit- 
tle more  intelligent.  There  is  a  terrible  deal  of  af- 
fectation, dreariness,  straining  after  originality,  and 
as  little  of  anything  artistic  as  there  was  salt  in  that 
porridge  we  cooked  in  the  evening  at  Bogimovo.  In 
the  preface  this  Rod  regrets  that  he  was  in  the  past 
a  "naturalist,"  and  rejoices  that  the  spiritualism  of 
the  latest  recruits  of  literature  has  replaced  material- 
ism. Boyish  boastfulness  which  is  at  the  same  time 
coarse  and  clumsy.  .  .  .  "If  we  are  not  as  talented 
as  you,  Monsieur  Zola,  to  make  up  for  it  we  believe 
in  God."  .   .   . 

July  29. 

Well,  thank  God!  To-day  I  have  received  from 
the  bookshop  notice  that  there  is  690  roubles 
6  kopecks  coming  to  me.  I  have  written  in  answer 
that  they  are  to  send  five  hundred  roubles  to  Feo- 
dosia  and  the  other  one  hundred  and  ninety  to  me. 
And  so  I  am  left  owing  you  only  one  hundred  and 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  265 

seventy.  That  is  comforting,  it's  an  advance  any- 
way. To  meet  the  debt  to  the  newspaper  I  am  arm- 
ing myself  with  an  immense  story  which  I  shall  finish 
in  a  day  or  two  and  send.  I  ought  to  knock  three 
hundred  roubles  off  the  debt,  and  get  as  much  for 
myself.     Ough!   .   .   . 

August  6. 

.  .  .  The  death  of  a  servant  in  the  house  makes 
a  strange  impression,  doesn't  it?  The  man  while  he 
was  alive  attracted  attention  only  so  far  as  he  was 
one's  "man";  but  when  he  is  dead  he  suddenly  en- 
grosses the  attention  of  all,  lies  like  a  weight  on  the 
whole  house,  and  becomes  the  despotic  master  who  is 
talked  of  to  the  exclusion  of  everything. 

...  I  shall  finish  my  story  to-morrow  or  the  day 
after,  but  not  to-day,  for  it  has  exhausted  me  fiend- 
ishly towards  the  end.  Thanks  to  the  haste  with 
which  I  have  worked  at  it,  I  have  wasted  a  pound 
of  nerves  over  it.  The  composition  of  it  is  a  little 
complicated.  I  got  into  difficulties  and  often  tore  up 
what  I  had  written,  and  for  days  at  a  time  was  dis- 
satisfied with  my  work — that  is  why  I  have  not  fin- 
ished it  till  now.  How  awful  it  is!  I  must  rewrite 
it!  It's  impossible  to  leave  it,  for  it  is  in  a  devil  of 
a  mess.  My  God!  if  the  public  likes  my  works  as 
little  as  I  do  those  of  other  people  which  I  am  reading, 
what  an  ass  I  am !  There  is  something  asinine  about 
our  writing.   .   .   . 

To  my  great  pleasure  the  amazing  astronomer  has 
arrived.  She  is  angry  with  you,  and  calls  you  for 
some  reason  an  "eloquent  gossip."  To  begin  with, 
she  is  free  and  independent;  and  then  she  has  a  poor 
opinion  of  men ;  and  further,  according  to  her,  every- 
one is  a  savage  or  a  ninny — and  you  dared  to  give 


266  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

her  my  address  with  the  words  "the  being  you  adore 
lives  at  .  .  .  ,"  and  so  on.  Upon  my  word,  as 
though  one  could  suspect  earthly  feelings  in  astron- 
omers who  soar  among  the  clouds!  She  talks  and 
laughs  all  day,  is  a  capital  mushroom-gatherer,  and 
dreams  of  the  Caucasus  to  which  she  is  departing  to- 
day. 

August  18. 

At  last  I  have  finished  my  long,  wearisome  story* 
and  am  sending  it  to  you  in  Feodosia.  Please  read 
it.  It  is  too  long  for  the  paper,  and  not  suitable  for 
dividing  into  parts.  Do  as  you  think  best,  how- 
ever.  .  .   . 

There  are  more  than  four  signatures  of  print  in  the 
story.  It's  awful.  I  am  exhausted,  and  dragged  the 
end,  like  a  train  of  waggons  on  a  muddy  night  in 
autumn,  at  a  walking  pace  with  halts — that  is  why 
I  am  late  with  it.   .  .  . 

August  18. 

Speaking  of  Nikolay  and  the  doctor  who  attends 
him,  you  emphasize  that  "all  that  is  done  without 
love,  without  self-sacrifice,  even  in  regard  to  trifling 
conveniences."  You  are  right,  speaking  of  people 
generally,  but  what  would  you  have  the  doctors  do? 
If,  as  your  old  nurse  says,  "The  bowel  has  burst," 
what's  one  to  do,  even  if  one  is  ready  to  give  one's 
life  to  the  sufferer?  As  a  rule,  while  the  family,  the 
relations,  and  the  servants  are  doing  "everything  they 
can"  and  are  straining  every  nerve,  the  doctor  sits 
and  looks  like  a  fool,  with  his  hands  folded,  discon- 
solately ashamed  of  himself  and  his  science,  and  try- 
ing to  preserve  external  tranquillity.   .   .   . 

*  "The  Duel." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  267 

Doctors  have  loathsome  days  and  hours,  such  as 
I  would  not  wish  my  worst  enemy.  It  is  true  that 
ignoramuses  and  coarse  louts  are  no  rarity  among 
doctors,  nor  are  they  among  writers,  engineers,  peo- 
ple in  general;  but  those  loathsome  days  and  hours 
of  which  I  speak  fall  to  the  lot  of  doctors  only,  and 
for  that,  truly,  much  may  be  forgiven  them.   .   .   . 

The  amazing  astronomer  is  at  Batum  now.  As 
I  told  her  I  should  go  to  Batum  too,  she  will  send  her 
address  to  Feodosia.  She  has  grown  cleverer  than 
ever  of  late.  One  day  I  overheard  a  learned  discus- 
sion between  her  and  the  zoologist  Wagner,  whom 
you  know.  It  seemed  to  me  that  in  comparison  with 
her  the  learned  professor  was  simply  a  schoolboy. 
She  has  excellent  logic  and  plenty  of  good  common 
sense,  but  no  rudder,  ...  so  that  she  drifts  and 
drifts,  and  doesn't  know  where  she  is  going.   .   .   . 

A  woman  was  carting  rye,  and  she  fell  off  the  wag- 
gon head  downwards.  She  was  terribly  injured: 
concussion  of  the  brain,  straining  of  the  vertebrae  of 
the  neck,  sickness,  fearful  pains,  and  so  on.  She 
was  brought  to  me.  She  was  moaning  and  groaning 
and  praying  for  death,  and  yet  she  looked  at  the  man 
who  brought  her  and  muttered:  "Let  the  lentils  go, 
Kirila,  you  can  thresh  them  later,  but  thresh  the  oats 
now."  I  told  her  that  she  could  talk  about  oats 
afterwards,  that  there  was  something  more  serious 
to  talk  about,  but  she  said  to  me:  "His  oats  are  ever 
so  good!"  A  managing,  vigilant  woman.  Death 
comes  easy  to  such  people.   .   .   . 

August  28. 

I  send  you  Mihailovsky's  article  on  Tolstoy.  Read 
it  and  grow  perfect.  It's  a  good  article,  but  it's 
strange ;  one  might  write  a  thousand  such  articles  and 


268  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

things  would  not  be  one  step  forwarder,  and  it  would 
still  remain  unintelligible  why  such  articles  are  writ- 
ten.  .   .   . 

I  am  writing  my  Sahalin,  and  I  am  bored,  I  am 
bored.   ...     I  am  utterly  sick  of  life. 

Judging  from  your  telegram  I  have  not  satisfied 
you  with  my  story.  You  should  not  have  hesitated 
to  send  it  back  to  me. 

Oh,  how  weary  I  am  of  sick  people !  A  neighbour- 
ing landowner  had  a  nervous  stroke  and  they  trundled 
me  off  to  him  in  a  scurvy  jolting  britchka.  Most  of 
all  I  am  sick  of  peasant  women  with  babies,  and  of 
powders  which  it  is  so  tedious  to  weigh  out. 

There  is  a  famine  year  coming.     I  suppose  there 

will  be  epidemics  of  all  sorts  and  risings  on  a  small 

scale.   ... 

August  28. 

So  you  like  my  story?*  Well,  thank  God!  Of 
late  I  have  become  devilishly  suspicious  and  uneasy. 
I  am  constantly  fancying  that  my  trousers  are  horrid, 
and  that  I  am  writing  not  as  I  want  to,  and  that  I 
am  giving  my  patients  the  wrong  powders.  It  must 
be  a  special  neurosis. 

If  Ladzievsky's  surname  is  really  horrible,  you  can 
call  him  something  else.  Let  him  be  Lagievsky,  let 
von  Koren  remain  von  Koren.  The  multitude  of 
Wagners,  Brandts,  and  so  on,  in  all  the  scientific 
world,  make  a  Russian  name  out  of  the  question  for 
a  zoologist — though  there  is  Kovalevsky.  And  by 
the  way,  Russian  life  is  so  mixed  up  nowadays  that 
any  surnames  will  do. 

Sahalin  is  progressing.  There  are  times  when  I 
long  to  sit  over  it  from  three  to  five  years,  and  work 

*  "The  Duel." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  269 

at  it  furiously;  but  at  times,  in  moments  of  doubt,  I 
could  spit  on  it.  It  would  be  a  good  thing,  by  God! 
to  devote  three  years  to  it.  I  shall  write  a  great 
deal  of  rubbish,  because  I  am  not  a  specialist,  but 
really  I  shall  write  something  sensible  too.  It  is  such 
a  good  subject,  because  it  would  live  for  a  hundred 
years  after  me,  as  it  would  be  the  literary  source  and 
aid  for  all  who  are  studying  prison  organization,  or 
are  interested  in  it. 

You  are  right,  your  Excellency,  I  have  done  a 
great  deal  this  summer.  Another  such  summer  and 
I  may  perhaps  have  written  a  novel  and  bought  an 
estate.  I  have  not  only  paid  my  way,  but  even  paid 
off  a  thousand  roubles  of  debt. 

.  .  .  Tell  your  son  that  I  envy  him.  And  I  envy 
you  too,  and  not  because  your  wives  have  gone  awav, 
but  because  you  are  bathing  in  the  sea  and  living  in 
a  warm  house.  I  am  cold  in  my  barn.  I  should  like 
new  carpets,  an  open  fireplace,  bronzes,  and  learned 
conversations.  Alas!  I  shall  never  be  a  Tolstovan. 
In  women  I  love  beautv  above  all  things;  and  in  the 
history  of  mankind,  culture,  expressed  in  carpets, 
carriages  with  springs,  and  keenness  of  wit.  Ach! 
To  make  haste  and  become  an  old  man  and  sit  at  a 
big  table!   .   .   . 

P.  S. — If  we  were  to  cut  the  zoological  conversa- 
tions out  of  "The  Duel"  wouldn't  it  make  it  more 
living?   .   .   . 

Moscow, 

September  8. 

I  have  returned  to  Moscow  and  am  keeping  in- 
doors.     My  family  is  busy  trying  to  find  a  new  flat 
but  I  say  nothing  because  I  am  too  lazy  to  turn  round 


270  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

They  want  to  move  to  Devitchye  Polye  for  the  sake  of 
cheapness. 

The  title  you  recommend  for  my  novel — "Decep- 
tion"— will  not  do:  it  would  only  be  appropriate  if 
it  were  a  question  of  conscious  lying.  Unconscious 
lying  is  not  deception  but  a  mistake.  Tolstoy  calls 
our  having  money  and  eating  meat  lying — that's  too 
much.   .   .   . 

Death  gathers  men  little  by  little,  he  knows  what 
he  is  about.  One  might  write  a  play :  an  old  chemist 
invents  the  elixir  of  life — take  fifteen  drops  and  you 
live  for  ever;  but  he  breaks  the  phial  from  terror,  lest 
such  carrion  as  himself  and  his  wife  might  live  for 
ever.  Tolstoy  denies  mankind  immortality,  but  my 
God !  how  much  that  is  personal  there  is  in  it !  The 
day  before  yesterday  I  read  his  "Afterword." 
Strike  me  dead!  but  it  is  stupider  and  stuffier  than 
"Letters  to  a  Governor's  Wife,"  which  I  despise. 
The  devil  take  the  philosophy  of  the  great  ones  of 
this  world!  All  the  great  sages  are  as  despotic 
as  generals,  and  as  ignorant  and  as  indelicate  as  gen- 
erals, because  they  feel  secure  of  impunity.  Diog- 
enes spat  in  people's  faces,  knowing  that  he  would 
not  suffer  for  it.  Tolstoy  abuses  doctors  as 
scoundrels,  and  displays  his  ignorance  in  great 
questions  because  he's  just  such  a  Diogenes  who 
won't  be  locked  up  or  abused  in  the  newspapers. 
And  so  to  the  devil  with  the  philosophy  of  all  the 
great  ones  of  this  world!  The  whole  of  it  with  its 
fanatical  "Afterwords"  and  "Letters  to  a  Governor's 
Wife"  is  not  worth  one  little  mare  in  his  "Story  of 
a  Horse.   ..." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  271 

To  E.  M.  S. 

Moscow, 
September  16. 

So  we  old  bachelors  smell  of  dogs?  So  be  it.  But 
as  for  specialists  in  feminine  diseases  being  at  heart 
rakes  and  cynics,  allow  me  to  differ.  Gynaecologists 
have  to  do  with  deadly  prose  such  as  you  have  never 
dreamed  of,  and  to  which  perhaps,  if  you  knew  it, 
you  would,  with  the  ferocity  characteristic  of  your 
imagination,  attribute  a  worse  smell  than  that  of 
dogs.  One  who  is  always  swimming  in  the  sea  loves- 
dry  land;  one  who  for  ever  is  plunged  in  prose 
passionately  longs  for  poetry.  All  gynaecologists 
are  idealists.  Your  doctor  reads  poems,  your  instinct 
prompted  you  right;  I  would  add  that  he  is  a  great 
liberal,  a  bit  of  a  mystic,  and  that  he  dreams  of  a 
wife  in  the  style  of  the  Nekrassov  Russian  woman. 
The  famous  Snyegirev  cannot  speak  of  the  "Russian 
woman"  without  a  quiver  in  his  voice.  Another 
gynaecologist  whom  I  know  is  in  love  with  a 
mysterious  lady  in  a  veil  whom  he  has  only  seen  from 
a  distance.  Another  one  goes  to  all  the  first  per- 
formances at  the  theatre  and  then  is  loud  in  his 
abuse,  declaring  that  authors  ought  to  represent 
only  ideal  women,  and  so  on.  You  have  omitted  to 
consider  also  that  a  good  gynaecologist  cannot  be  a 
stupid  man  or  a  mediocrity.  Intellect  has  a  brighter 
lustre  than  baldness,  but  you  have  noticed  the  bald- 
ness and  emphasized  it — and  have  flung  the  intellect 
overboard.  You  have  noticed,  too,  and  emphasized 
that  a  fat  man — brrr! — exudes  a  sort  of  greasiness, 
but  you  completely  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  he  is  a 
professor — that  is,  that  he  has  spent  several  years  in 


272  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

thinking  and  doing  something  which  sets  him  high 
above  millions  of  men,  high  above  all  the  Verotchkas 
and  Taganrog  Greek  girls,  high  above  dinners  and 
wines  of  all  sorts.  Noah  had  three  sons,  Shem,  Ham, 
and  Japheth.  Ham  only  noticed  that  his  father  was 
a  drunkard,  and  completely  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that 
he  was  a  genius,  that  he  had  built  an  ark  and  saved 
the  world. 

Writers  must  not  imitate  Ham,  bear  that  in  mind. 

I  do  not  venture  to  ask  you  to  love  the  gynaecolo- 
gist and  the  professor,  but  I  venture  to  remind  you 
of  the  justice  which  for  an  objective  writer  is  more 
precious  than  the  air  he  breathes. 

The  girl  of  the  merchant  class  is  admirably  drawn. 
That  is  a  good  passage  in  the  doctor's  speech  in 
which  he  speaks  of  his  lack  of  faith  in  medicine,  but 
there  is  no  need  to  make  him  drink  after  every  sen- 
tence.  .   .   . 

Then  from  the  particular  to  the  general!  Let 
me  warn  you.  This  is  not  a  story  and  not  a  novel 
and  not  a  work  of  art,  but  a  long  row  of  heavy, 
gloomy  barrack  buildings.  Where  is  your  construc- 
tion which  at  first  so  enchanted  your  humble  servant? 
Where  is  the  lightness,  the  freshness,  the  grace? 
Read  your  story  through:  a  description  of  a  dinner, 
then  a  description  of  passing  ladies  and  girls,  then 
a  description  of  a  company,  then  a  description  of  a 
dmner,  .  .  .  and  so  on  endlessly.  Descriptions 
and  descriptions  and  no  action  at  all.  You  ought  to 
begin  straight  away  with  the  merchant's  daughter, 
and  keep  to  her,  and  chuck  out  Verotchka  and  the 
Greek  girls  and  all  the  rest,  except  the  doctor  and 
the  merchant  family. 

Excuse  this  long  letter.  '< 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  273 

To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Moscow, 
October  16,  1891. 

I  congratulate  you  on  your  new  cook,  and  wish  you 
an  excellent  appetite.  Wish  me  the  same,  for  I  am 
coming  to  see  you  soon — sooner  than  I  had  intended 
— and  shall  eat  for  three.  I  simply  must  get  away 
from  home,  if  only  for  a  fortnight.  From  morning 
till  night  I  am  unpleasantly  irritable,  I  feel  as  though 
someone  were  drawing  a  blunt  knife  over  my  soul, 
and  this  irritability  finds  external  expression  in  my 
hurrying  off  to  bed  early  and  avoiding  conversation. 
Nothing  I  do  succeeds.  I  began  a  story  for  the 
Sbornik;  I  wrote  half  and  threw  it  up,  and  then  be- 
gan another;  I  have  been  struggling  for  more  than 
a  week  with  this  story,  and  the  time  when  I  shall 
finish  it  and  when  I  shall  set  to  work  and  finish  the 
first  story,  for  which  I  am  to  be  paid,  seems  to  me  far 
away.  I  have  not  been  to  the  province  of  Nizhni 
Novgorod  yet,  for  reasons  not  under  my  control,  and 
I  don't  know  when  I  shall  go.  In  fact  it's  a  hopeless 
mess — a  silly  muddle  and  not  life.  And  I  desire 
nothing  now  so  much  as  to  win  two  hundred  thou- 
sand.  .   .   . 

Ah,  I  have  such  a  subject  for  a  novel !  If  I  were 
in  a  tolerable  humour  I  could  begin  it  on  the  first  of 
November  and  finish  it  on  the  first  of  December.  I 
would  make  five  signatures  of  print.  And  I  long 
to  write  as  I  did  at  Bogimovo — i.e.,  from  morning 
till  night  and  in  my  sleep. 

Don't  tell  anyone  I  am  coming  to  Petersburg.  I 
shall  live  incognito.  In  my  letters  I  write  vaguely 
that  I  am  coming  in  November.   .   .   . 

Shall  I  remind  you  of  Kashtanka,  or  forget  about 


274  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

her?     Won't  she  lose  her  childhood  and  youth  if  we 
don't  print  her?     However,  you  know  best.   .   .   . 

P.  S. — If  you  see  my  brother  Alexandr,  tell  him 
that  our  aunt  is  dying  of  consumption.  Her  days 
are  numbered.     She  was  a  splendid  woman,  a  saint. 

If  you  want  to  visit  the  famine-stricken  provinces, 
let  us  go  together  in  January,  it  will  be  more  con- 
spicuous then.   .   .   . 

Moscow, 
October  19,  1891. 

What  a  splendid  little  letter  has  come  from  you! 
It  is  warmly  and  eloquently  written,  and  every 
thought  in  it  is  true.  To  talk  now  of  laziness  and 
drunkenness,  and  so  on,  is  as  strange  and  tactless  as  to 
lecture  a  man  on  the  conduct  of  life  at  a  moment 
when  he  is  being  sick  or  lying  ill  of  typhus.  There 
is  always  a  certain  element  of  insolence  in  being 
well-fed,  as  in  every  kind  of  force,  and  that  element 
finds  expression  chiefly  in  the  well-fed  man  preaching 
to  the  hungry.  If  consolation  is  revolting  at  a  time 
of  real  sorrow,  what  must  be  the  effect  of  preaching 
morality ;  and  how  stupid  and  insulting  that  preaching 
must  seem.  These  moral  people  imagine  that  if  a 
man  is  fifteen  roubles  in  arrears  with  his  taxes  he 
must  be  a  wastrel,  and  ought  not  to  drink;  but  they 
ought  to  reckon  up  how  much  states  are  in  debt, 
and  prime  ministers,  and  what  the  debts  of  all  the 
marshals  of  nobility  and  all  the  bishops  taken  to- 
gether come  to.  What  do  the  Guards  owe!  Only 
their  tailors  could  tell  us  that.   ... 

You  have  told  them  to  send  me  four  hundred? 
Vivat  dominus  Suvorin !  So  I  have  already  received 
from  your  firm  400  +  100  +  400.     Altogether  I 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  275 

shall  get  for  "The  Duel,"  as  I  calculated,  about  four- 
teen hundred,  so  five  hundred  will  go  towards  my 
debt.  Well,  and  for  that  thank  God !  By  the  spring 
I  must  pay  off  all  my  debt  or  I  shall  go  into  a  decline, 
for  in  the  spring  I  want  another  advance  from  all 
my  editors.     I  shall  take  it  and  escape  to  Java.   .   .   . 

Ah,  my  friends,  how  bored  I  am !  If  I  am  a  doctor 
I  ought  to  have  patients  and  a  hospital;  if  I  am  a 
literary  man  I  ought  to  live  among  people  instead 
of  in  a  flat  with  a  mongoose,  I  ought  to  have  at  least 
a  scrap  of  social  and  political  life — but  this  life  be- 
tween four  walls,  without  nature,  without  people, 
without  a  country,  without  health  and  appetite,  is  not 
life,  but  some  sort  of  .   .   .  and  nothing  more. 

For  the  sake  of  all  the  perch  and  pike  you  are  going 
to  catch  on  your  Zaraish  estate,  I  entreat  you  to  pub- 
lish the  English  humorist  Bernard.*   .   .   . 

To  Madame  Lintvaryov. 

Moscow, 
October  25,  1891. 

Honoured  Natalya  Mihailovna, 

I  have  not  gone  to  Nizhni  as  I  meant  to,  but  am 
sitting  at  home,  writing  and  sneezing.  Madame 
Morozov  has  seen  the  Minister,  he  has  absolutely 
prohibited  private  initiative  in  the  work  of  famine 
relief,  and  actually  waved  her  out  of  his  presence. 
This  has  reduced  me  to  apathy  at  once.  Add  to 
that,  complete  lack  of  money,  sneezing,  a  mass  of 
work,  the  illness  of  my  aunt  who  died  to-day,  the 
indefiniteness,  the  uncertainty  in  fact — everything 
has  come  together  to  hinder  a  lazy  person  like  me. 

*   ?  Bernard  Shaw. — Translator's  Note. 


276  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

I   have   put   off   my    going   away   till   the    first    of 
December. 

We  felt  dull  without  you  for  a  long  time,  and  when 
the  Shah  of  Persia*  went  away  it  was  duller  still. 
I  have  given  orders  that  no  one  is  to  be  admitted, 
and  sit  in  my  room  like  a  heron  in  the  reeds ;  I  see  no 
one,  and  no  one  sees  me.  And  it  is  better  so,  or  the 
public  would  pull  the  bell  off,  and  my  study  would 
be  turned  into  a  smoking  and  talking  room.  It's 
dull  to  live  like  this,  but  what  am  I  to  do?  I  shall 
wait  till  the  summer  and  then  let  myself  go. 

I  shall  sell  the  mongoose  by  auction.  I  should  be 
glad  to  sell  N.  and  his  poems  too,  but  no  one  would 
buy  him.  He  dashes  in  to  see  me  almost  every  evening 
as  he  used  to  do,  and  bores  me  with  his  doubts,  his 
struggles,  his  volcanoes,  slit  nostrils,  atamans,  the  life 
of  the  free,  and  such  tosh,  for  which  God  forgive  him. 

Russkiya  Vyedomosti  is  printing  a  Sbornik  for  the 
famine  fund.  With  your  permission,  I  shall  send  you 
a  copy. 

Well,  good  health  and  happiness  to  you;  respects 
and  greetings  to  all  yours  from 

the  Geographer, 

A.  Chekhov. 

P.  S. — All  my  family  send  their  regards. 

We  are  all  well  but  sorrowful.  Our  aunt  was  a 
general  favourite,  and  was  considered  among  us  the 
incarnation  of  goodness,  kindness,  and  justice,  if 
only  all  that  can  be  incarnated.  Of  course  we  shall 
all  die,  but  still  it  is  sad. 

In  April  I  shall  be  in  your  parts.  By  the  spring 
I  hope  I  shall  have  heaps  of  money.  I  judge  by  the 
omen :   no  money  is  a  sign  of  money  coming. 

*  A.  I.  Smagin. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  277 

To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Moscow, 
October  25,  1891. 

Print  "The  Duel"  not  twice  a  week  but  only  once. 
To  print  it  twice  is  breaking  a  long-established  custom 
of  the  paper,  and  it  would  seem  as  though  I  were 
robbing  the  other  contributors  of  one  day  a  week; 
and  meanwhile  it  makes  no  difference  to  me  or  my 
novel  whether  it  is  printed  once  a  week  or  twice. 
The  literary  brotherhood  in  Petersburg  seems  to  talk 
of  nothing  but  the  uncleanness  of  my  motives.  I 
have  just  received  the  good  news  that  I  am  to  be  mar- 
ried to  the  rich  Madame  Sibiryakov.  I  get  a  lot  of 
agreeable  news  altogether. 

I  wake  up  every  night  and  read  "War  and  Peace." 
One  reads  it  with  the  same  interest  and  naive  wonder 
as  though  one  had  never  read  it  before.  It's 
amazingly  good.  Only  I  don't  like  the  passages  in 
which  Napoleon  appears.  As  soon  as  Napoleon 
comes  on  the  scene  there  are  forced  explanations  and 
tricks  of  all  sorts  to  prove  that  he  was  stupider  than 
he  really  was.  Everything  that  is  said  and  done  by 
Pierre,  Prince  Audrey,  or  the  absolutely  insignificant 
Nikolay  Rostov — all  that  is  good,  clever,  natural,  and 
touching;  everything  that  is  thought  and  done  by 
Napoleon  is  not  natural,  not  clever,  inflated  and 
worthless. 

When  I  live  in  the  provinces  (of  which  I  dream 
now  day  and  night),  I  shall  practice  as  a  doctor  and 
read  novels. 

I  am  not  coming  to  Petersburg. 

If  I  had  been  by  Prince  Audrey  I  should  have  saved 
him.     It  is  strange  to  read  that  the  wound  of  a 


278  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

prince,  a  rich  man  spending  his  days  and  nights  with 
a  doctor  and  being  nursed  by  Natasha  and  Sonya, 
should  have  smelt  hke  a  corpse.  What  a  scurvy 
affair  medicine  was  in  those  days!  Tolstoy  could 
not  help  getting  soaked  through  with  hatred  for 
medicine  while  he  was  writing  his  thick  novel.  .   .  . 

Moscow, 
November  18,  1891. 

...  I  have  read  your  letter  about  the  influenza 
and  Solovyov.  I  was  unexpectedly  aware  of  a  dash 
of  cruelty  in  it.  The  phrase  'T  hate"  does  not  suit 
you  at  all;  and  a  public  confession  'T  am  a  sinner^ 
a  sinner,  a  sinner,"  is  such  pride  that  it  made  me 
feel  uncomfortable.  When  the  pope  took  the  title 
"holiness,"  the  head  of  the  Eastern  church,  in  pique, 
called  himself  "The  servant  of  God's  servants."  So 
you  publicly  expatiate  on  your  sinfulness  from  pique 
of  Solovyov,  who  has  the  impudence  to  call  himself 
orthodox.  But  does  a  word  like  orthodoxy,  Judaism, 
or  Catholicism  contain  any  implication  of  exceptional 
personal  merit  or  virtue?  To  my  thinking  every- 
body is  bound  to  call  himself  orthodox  if  he  has  that 
word  inscribed  on  his  passport.  Whether  you  be- 
lieve or  not,  whether  you  are  a  prince  of  this  world 
or  an  exile  in  penal  servitude,  you  are,  for  practical 
purposes,  orthodox.  And  Solov}"ov  made  no  sort  of 
pretension  when  he  said  he  was  no  Jew  or  Chaldean 
but  orthodox.   .   .   . 

I  still  feel  dull,  blighted,  foolish,  and  indifferent, 
and  I  am  still  sneezing  and  coughing,  and  I  am 
beginning  to  think  I  shall  not  get  back  to  my  former 
health.  But  that's  all  in  God's  hands.  Medical 
treatment  and  anxiety  about  one's  physical  existence 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  279 

arouse  in  me  a  feeling  not  far  from  loathing.  I  am 
not  going  to  be  doctored.  I  will  take  water  and 
quinine,  but  I  am  not  going  to  let  myself  be 
sounded.   .   .   . 

I  had  only  just  finished  this  letter  when  I  received 
yours.  You  say  that  if  I  go  into  the  wilds  I  shall 
be  quite  cut  off  from  you.  But  I  am  going  to  live 
in  the  country  in  order  to  be  nearer  Petersburg.  If 
I  have  no  flat  in  Moscow  you  must  understand,  my 
dear  sir,  I  shall  spend  November,  December,  and 
January  in  Petersburg:  that  will  be  possible  then. 
I  shall  be  able  to  be  idle  all  the  summer  too;  I  shall 
look  out  for  a  house  in  the  country  for  you,  but  you 
are  wrong  in  disliking  Little  Russians,  they  are  not 
children  or  actors  in  the  province  of  Poltava,  but 
genuine  people,  and  cheerful  and  well-fed  into  the 
bargain. 

Do  you  know  what  relieves  my  cough?  When  I 
am  working  I  sprinkle  the  edge  of  the  table  with 
turpentine  with  a  sprayer  and  inhale  its  vapour. 
When  I  go  to  bed  I  spray  my  little  table  and  other 
objects  near  me.  The  fine  drops  evaporate  sooner 
than  the  liquid  itself.  And  the  smell  of  turpentine 
is  pleasant.  I  drink  Obersalzbrunnen,  avoid  hot 
things,  talk  little,  and  blame  myself  for  smoking  so 
much.  I  repeat,  dress  as  warmly  as  possible,  even 
at  home.  Avoid  draughts  at  the  theatre.  Treat 
yourself  like  a  hothouse  plant  or  you  will  not  soon 
be  rid  of  your  cough.  If  you  want  to  try  turpentine, 
buy  the  French  kind.  Take  quinine  once  a  day,  and 
be  careful  to  avoid  constipation.  Influenza  has 
completely  taken  away  from  me  any  desire  to  drink 
spirituous  liquors.  They  are  disgusting  to  my  taste. 
I  don't  drink  my  two  glasses  at  night,  and  so  it  is  a 


280  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

long  time  before  I  can  get  to  sleep.      I  want  to  take 
ether. 

I  await  your  story.  In  the  summer  let  us  each 
write  a  play.  Yes,  by  God!  why  the  devil  should 
we  waste  our  time.   .   .   . 


To  E.  M.  S. 


Moscow, 
November  19,   1891. 


Honoured  Elena  Mihailovna, 

I  am  at  home  to  all  commencing,  continuing,  and 
concluding  authors — that  is  my  rule,  and  apart  from 
your  authorship  and  mine,  I  regard  a  visit  from  you 
as  a  great  honour  to  me.  Even  if  it  were  not  so,  even 
if  for  some  reason  I  did  not  desire  your  visit,  even 
then  I  should  have  received  you,  as  I  have  enjoyed 
the  greatest  hospitality  from  your  family.  I  did  not 
receive  you,  and  at  once  asked  my  brother  to  go  to 
you  and  explain  the  cause.  At  the  moment  your  card 
was  handed  me  I  was  ill  and  undressed — forgive  these 
homely  details — I  was  in  my  bedroom,  while  there 
were  persons  in  my  study  whose  presence  would  not 
have  been  welcome  to  you.  And  so — to  see  you  was 
physically  impossible,  and  this  my  brother  was  to 
have  explained  to  you,  and  you,  a  decent  and  good- 
hearted  person,  ought  to  have  understood  it;  but  you 
were  offended.     Well,  I  can't  help  it.   .   .   . 

But  can  you  really  have  written  only  fifteen 
stories? — at  this  rate  you  won't  learn  to  write  till 
you  are  fifty. 

I  am  in  bad  health;  for  over  a  month  I  have  had 
to  keep  indoors — influenza  and  cough. 

All  good  wishes. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  281 

Write  another  twenty  stories  and  send  them.  I 
shall  always  read  them  with  pleasure,  and  practice 
is  essential  for  you. 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Moscow, 
November  22,  1891. 

My  health  is  on  the  road  to  improvement.  My 
cough  is  less,  my  strength  is  greater.  My  mood  is 
livelier,  and  there  is  sunrise  in  my  head.  I  wake  up 
in  the  morning  in  good  spirits,  go  to  bed  without 
gloomy  thoughts,  and  at  dinner  I  am  not  ill-humoured 
and  don't  say  nasty  things  to  my  mother. 

I  don't  know  when  I  shall  come  to  you.  I  have 
heaps  of  work  pour  manger.  Till  the  spring  I  must 
work — that  is,  at  senseless  grind.  A  ray  of  liberty 
has  beamed  upon  my  horizon.  There  has  come  a 
whiff  of  freedom.  Yesterday  I  got  a  letter  from  the 
province  of  Poltava.  They  write  they  have  found 
me  a  suitable  place.  A  brick  house  of  seven  rooms 
with  an  iron  roof,  lately  built  and  needing  no  repairs, 
a  stable,  a  cellar,  an  icehouse,  eighteen  acres  of  land, 
an  excellent  meadow  for  hay,  an  old  shady  garden  on 
the  bank  of  the  river  Psyol.  The  river  bank  is  mine ; 
on  that  side  there  is  a  marvellous  view  over  a  wide 
expanse.  The  price  is  merciful.  Three  thousand, 
and  tv/o  thousand  deferred  payment  over  several 
years.  Five  in  all.  If  heaven  has  mercy  upon  me, 
and  the  purchase  comes  off,  I  shall  move  there  in 
March  for  good,  to  live  quietly  in  the  lap  of  nature  for 
nine  months  and  the  rest  of  the  year  in  Petersburg. 
I  am  sending  my  sister  to  look  at  the  place. 

Ach!  liberty,  liberty!      If  I  can  live  on  not  more 


282  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

than  two  thousand  a  year,  which  is  only  possible 

in  the  country,  I  shall  be  absolutely  free  from  all 

anxieties  over  money  coming  in  and  going  out.     Then 

I  shall  work  and  read,  read  .   .   .  in  a  word  it  will  be 

marmelad.^  .   .   . 

Moscow, 
November  30,  1891. 

I  return  you  the  two  manuscripts  you  sent  me. 
One  story  is  an  Indian  Legend — The  Lotus  Flower, 
Wreaths  of  Laurel,  A  Summer  Night,  The  Humming 
Bird — that  in  India!  He  begins  with  Faust  thirst- 
ing for  youth  and  ends  with  "the  bliss  of  the  true 
life,"  in  the  style  of  Tolstoy.  I  have  cut  out  parts, 
polished  it  up,  and  the  result  is  a  legend  of  no  great 
value,  indeed,  but  light,  and  it  may  be  read  with 
interest.  The  other  story  is  illiterate,  clumsy,  and 
womanish  in  structure,  but  there  is  a  story  and  a 
certain  raciness.  I  have  cut  it  down  to  half  as  you 
see.     Both  stories  could  be  printed.   .   .   . 

I  keep  dreaming  and  dreaming.  I  dream  of  mov- 
ing from  Moscow  into  the  country  in  March,  and  in 
the  autumn  coming  to  Petersburg  to  stay  till  the 
spring.  I  long  to  spend  at  least  one  winter  in  Peters- 
burg, and  that's  only  possible  on  condition  I  have  no 
perch  in  Moscow.  And  I  dream  of  how  I  shall  spend 
five  months  talking  to  you  about  literature,  and  do  as 
I  think  best  in  the  Novoye  Vremya,  while  in  the  coun- 
try I  shall  go  in  for  medicine  heart  and  soul. 

Boborykin  has  been  to  see  me.     He  is  dreaming 

too.     He  told  me  that  he  wants  to  write  something 

in  the  way  of  the  physiology  of  the  Russian  novel,  its 

origin  among  us,  and  the  natural  course  of  its  develop- 

*  A  kind  of  sweetmeat  made  by  boiling  down  fruit  to  the  con- 
sistency of  damson  cheese. — Translator's  Note. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  283 

ment.  While  he  was  talking  I  could  not  get  rid  of 
the  feeling  that  I  had  a  maniac  before  me,  but  a 
literary  maniac  who  put  literature  far  above  every- 
thing in  life.  I  so  rarely  see  genuine  literar)^  people 
at  home  in  Moscow  that  a  conversation  with  Bobory- 
kin  seemed  like  heavenly  manna,  though  I  don't 
believe  in  the  physiology  of  the  novel  and  the  natural 
course  of  its  development — that  is,  there  may  exist 
such  a  physiology  in  nature,  but  I  don't  believe  with 
existing  methods  it  can  be  detected.  Boborykin 
dismisses  Gogol  absolutely  and  refuses  to  recognize 
him  as  a  forerunner  of  Turgenev,  Gontcharov,  and 
Tolstoy.  ...  He  puts  him  apart,  outside  the  cur- 
rent in  which  the  Russian  novel  has  flowed.  Well, 
I  don't  understand  that.  If  one  takes  the  standpoint 
of  natural  development,  it's  impossible  to  put  not  only 
Gogol,  but  even  a  dog  barking,  outside  the  current, 
for  all  things  in  nature  influence  one  another,  and 
even  the  fact  that  I  have  just  sneezed  is  not  without 
its  influence  on  surrounding  nature.   .   .   . 

Good  health  to  you!  I  am  reading  Shtchedrin's 
"Diary  of  a  Provincial."  How  long  and  boring  it 
is !     And  at  the  same  time  how  like  real  life ! 


To  N.  A.  Leikin. 


Moscow, 
December  2,  1891. 


I  am  writing  to  ask  you  a  great  favour,  dear 
Nikolay  Alexandrovitch.  This  is  what  it  is.  Until 
last  year  I  have  always  lived  with  my  university 
diploma,  which  by  land  and  by  sea  has  served  me  for 
a  passport;  but  every  time  it  has  been  vise  the  police 
have  warned  me  that  one  cannot  live  with  a  diploma. 


284  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

and  that  I  ought  to  get  a  passport  from  "the  proper  de- 
partment." I  have  asked  everyone  what  this 
"proper  department"  means,  and  no  one  has  given 
me  an  answer.  A  year  ago  the  Moscow  head  police 
officer  gave  me  a  passport  on  the  condition  that 
within  a  year  I  should  get  a  passport  from  "the  proper 
department."  I  can't  make  head  or  tail  of  it !  The 
other  day  I  learned  that  as  I  have  never  been  in  the 
government  service  and  by  education  am  a  doctor, 
I  ought  to  be  registered  in  the  class  of  professional 
citizens,  and  that  a  certain  department,  I  believe  the 
heraldic,  will  furnish  me  with  a  certificate  which  will 
serve  me  as  a  passport  for  all  the  days  of  my  life. 
I  remembered  that  you  had  lately  received  the  grade 
of  professional  citizen,  and  with  it  a  certificate,  and 
that  therefore  you  must  have  applied  somewhere  and 
to  someone  and  so,  in  a  sense,  are  an  old  campaigner. 
For  God's  sake  advise  me  to  what  department  I  ought 
to  apply.  What  petition  ought  I  to  write,  and  how 
many  stamps  ought  I  to  put  on  it?  What  documents 
must  be  enclosed  with  the  petition?  and  so  on,  and 
so  on.  In  the  town  hall  there  is  a  "passport  bureau." 
Could  not  that  bureau  reveal  the  mystery  if  it  is  not 
sufficiently  clear  to  you? 

Forgive  me  for  troubling  you,  but  I  really  don't 
know  to  whom  to  apply,  and  I  am  a  very  poor  lawyer 
myself.   .   .   . 

Your  "Medal"  is  often  given  at  Korsh's  Theatre, 
and  with  success.  It  is  played  together  with  Myas- 
nitsky's  "Hare."  I  haven't  seen  them,  but  friends 
tell  me  that  a  great  difference  is  felt  between  the  two 
plays:  that  "The  Medal"  in  comparison  with  "The 
Hare"  seems  something  clean,  artistic,  and  having 
form  and  semblance.     There  you  have  it!      Literary 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  285 

men  are  swept  out  of  the  theatre,  and  plays  are  writ- 
ten by  nondescript  people,  old  and  young,  while  the 
journals  and  newspapers  are  edited  by  tradesmen, 
government  clerks,  and  young  ladies.  But  there, 
the  de\dl  take  them!   .   .   . 


To  E.  P.  Yegorov. 

Moscow, 
December  11,  1891. 

Honoured  Evgraf  Petrovitch, 

I  write  to  explain  why  my  journey  to  you  did  not 
come  off.  I  was  intending  to  come  to  you  not  as  a 
special  correspondent,  but  on  a  commission  from, 
or  more  correctly  by  agreement  with,  a  small  circle 
of  people  who  want  to  do  something  for  the  famine- 
stricken  peasants.  The  point  is  that  the  public  does 
not  trust  the  administration  and  so  is  deterred  from 
subscribing.  There  are  a  thousand  legends  and 
fables  about  the  waste,  the  shameless  theft,  and  so  on. 
People  hold  aloof  from  the  Episcopal  department 
and  are  indignant  with  the  Red  Cross.  The  owner 
of  our  beloved  Babkino,  the  Zemsky  Natchalnik, 
rapped  out  to  me,  bluntly  and  definitely:  "The  Red 
Cross  in  Moscow  are  thieves."  Such  being  the  state 
of  feeling,  the  government  can  scarcely  expect  serious 
help  from  the  public.  And  yet  the  public  wants  to 
help  and  its  conscience  is  uneasy.  In  September  the 
educated  and  wealthy  classes  of  Moscow  formed 
themselves  into  circles,  thought,  talked,  and  applied 
for  advice  to  leading  persons;  evei'yone  was  talking 
of  how  to  get  round  the  government  and  organize 
independently.  They  decided  to  send  to  the  famine- 
stricken  provinces  their  own  agents,  who  should  make 


286  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

acquaintance  with  the  position  on  the  spot,  open  feed- 
ing centres,  and  so  on.  Some  of  the  leaders  of 
these  circles,  persons  of  weight,  went  to  Durnovo 
to  ask  permission,  and  Durnovo  refused  it,  declaring 
that  the  organization  of  relief  must  be  left  to  the 
Episcopal  department  and  the  Red  Cross.  In  short, 
private  initiative  was  suppressed  at  its  first  efforts. 
Everyone  was  cast  down  and  dispirited;  some  were 
furious,  some  simply  washed  their  hands  of  the  whole 
business.  One  must  have  the  courage  and  authority 
of  Tolstoy  to  act  in  opposition  to  all  prohibitions  and 
prevailing  sentiments,  and  to  follow  the  dictates  of 
duty. 

Well,  now  about  myself.  I  am  in  complete 
sympathy  with  individual  initiative,  for  every  man 
has  the  right  to  do  good  in  the  way  he  thinks  best; 
but  all  the  discussion  concerning  the  government, 
the  Red  Cross,  and  so  on,  seemed  to  me  inopportune 
and  impractical.  I  imagined  that  with  coolness  and 
good  humour,  one  might  get  round  all  the  terrors 
and  delicacy  of  the  position,  and  that  there  was  no 
need  to  go  to  the  Minister  about  it.  I  went  to 
Sahalin  without  a  single  letter  of  recommendation, 
and  yet  I  did  everything  I  wanted  to.  Why  cannot 
I  go  to  the  famine-stricken  provinces?  I  remem- 
bered, too,  such  representatives  of  the  government  as 
you,  Kiselyov,  and  all  the  Zemsky  Natchalniks  and 
tax  inspectors  of  my  acquaintance — all  extremely 
decent  people,  worthy  of  complete  confidence.  And 
I  resolved — if  only  for  a  small  region — to  combine 
the  two  elements  of  officialdom  and  private  initia- 
tive. I  want  to  come  and  consult  you  as  soon  as 
I  can.  The  public  trusts  me;  it  would  trust  you, 
too,  and  I  might  reckon  on  succeeding.     Do  you  re- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  287 

member  I  wrote  to  you?  Suvorin  came  to  Moscow 
at  the  time;  I  complained  to  him  that  I  did  not  know 
your  address.  He  telegraphed  to  Baranov,  and 
Baranov  was  so  kind  as  to  send  it  to  me.  Suvorin  was 
ill  with  influenza ;  as  a  rule  when  he  comes  to  Moscow 
we  spend  whole  days  together  discussing  literature,  of 
which  he  has  a  wide  knowledge;  we  did  the  same 
on  this  occasion,  and  in  consequence  I  caught  his 
influenza,  was  laid  up,  and  had  a  raging  cough. 
Korolenko  was  in  Moscow,  and  he  found  me  ill. 
Lung  complications  kept  me  ill  for  a  whole  month, 
confined  to  the  house  and  unable  to  do  anything. 
Now  I  am  on  the  way  to  recovery,  though  I  still  cough 
and  am  thin.  There  is  the  whole  story  for  you.  If 
it  had  not  been  for  the  influenza  we  might  together 
perhaps  have  succeeded  in  extracting  two  or  three 
thousand  or  more  from  the  public. 

Your  exasperation  with  the  press  I  can  quite 
understand.  The  lucubrations  of  the  journalists 
annoy  you  who  know  the  true  position  of  affairs,  in 
the  same  way  as  the  lucubrations  of  the  profane  about 
diphtheria  annoy  me  as  a  doctor.  But  what  would 
you  have?  Russia  is  not  England  and  is  not  France. 
Our  newspapers  are  not  rich  and  they  have  very  few 
men  at  their  disposal.  To  send  to  the  Volga  a  profes- 
sor of  the  Petrovsky  Academy  or  an  Engelhardt  is 
expensive:  to  send  a  talented  and  business-like 
member  of  the  staff  is  impossible  too — he  is  wanted 
at  home.  The  Times  could  organize  a  census  in  the 
famine-stricken  provinces  at  its  own  expense,  could 
settle  a  Kennan  in  every  district,  paying  him  forty 
roubles  a  day,  and  then  something  sensible  could  be 
done;  but  what  can  the  Russkiya  Vyedomosd  or  the 
Novoye  Vremya  do,  who  consider  an  income  of  a  hun- 


288  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

dred  thousand  as  the  weahh  of  Croesus?  As  for  the 
correspondents  themselves,  they  are  townsmen  who 
know  the  country  only  from  Glyeb  Uspensky.  Their 
position  is  an  utterly  false  one,  they  must  fly  into 
a  district,  sniff  about,  write,  and  dash  on  further. 
The  Russian  correspondent  has  neither  material 
resources,  nor  freedom,  nor  authority.  For  two 
hundred  roubles  a  month  he  gallops  on  and  on,  and 
only  prays  they  may  not  be  angry  with  him  for  his 
involuntary  and  inevitable  misrepresentations.  He 
feels  guilty — though  it  is  not  he  that  is  to  blame  but 
Russian  darkness.  The  newspaper  correspondents 
of  the  west  have  excellent  maps,  encyclopaedias,  and 
statistics;  in  the  west  they  could  write  their  reports, 
sitting  at  home,  but  among  us  a  correspondent  can 
extract  information  only  from  talk  and  rumour. 
Among  us  in  Russia  only  three  districts  have  been 
investigated:  the  Tcherepov  district,  the  Tambov 
district,  and  one  other.  That  is  all  in  the  whole  of 
Russia.  The  newspapers  tell  lies,  the  correspondents 
are  duff"ers,  but  what's  to  be  done?  If  our  press  said 
nothing  the  position  would  be  still  more  awful,  you'll 
admit  that. 

Your  letter  and  your  scheme  for  buying  the  cattle 
from  the  peasants  has  stirred  me  up.  I  am  ready 
with  all  my  heart  and  all  my  strength  to  follow  your 
lead  and  do  whatever  you  think  best.  I  have 
thought  it  over  for  a  long  time,  and  this  is  my  opinion: 
it  is  no  use  to  reckon  upon  the  rich.  It  is  too  late. 
Every  wealthy  man  has  by  now  forked  out  as  many 
thousands  as  he  is  destined  to.  Our  one  resource 
now  is  the  middle-class  man  who  subscribes  by  the 
rouble  and  the  half-rouble.  Those  who  in  Septem- 
ber Were  talking  about  private  initiative  will  by  now 


,     LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  289 

have  found  themselves  a  niche  in  various  boards 
and  committees  and  are  already  at  work.  So  only 
the  middle-class  man  is  left.  Let  us  open  a  sub- 
scription list.  You  shall  write  a  letter  to  the  editors, 
and  I  will  get  it  printed  in  Russkiya  Vyedomosti  and 
Novoye  Vremya.  To  combine  the  two  elements  above 
mentioned,  we  might  both  sign  the  letter.  If  that  is 
inconvenient  to  you  from  an  official  point  of  view,  one 
might  write  in  the  third  person  as  a  communication 
that  in  the  fifth  section  of  the  Nizhni  Novgorod  dis- 
trict this  and  that  had  been  organized,  that  things 
were,  thank  God!  going  successfully  and  that  sub- 
scriptions could  be  sent  to  the  Zemsky  Natchalnik, 
E.  P.  Yegorov,  or  to  A.  P.  Chekhov,  or  to  the  editor 
of  such  and  such  papers.  We  need  only  to  write  at 
some  length.  Write  in  full  detail,  I  will  add  some- 
thing, and  the  thing  will  be  done.  We  must  ask  for 
subscriptions  and  not  for  loans.  No  one  will  come 
forward  with  a  loan;  it  is  uncomfortable.  It  is  hard 
to  give,  but  it  is  harder  still  to  take  back. 

I  have  only  one  rich  acquaintance  in  Moscow, 
V.  A.  Morozov,  a  lady  well-known  for  her  philan- 
thropy. I  went  to  see  her  yesterday  with  your  letter. 
I  talked  with  her  and  dined  with  her.  She  is 
absorbed  now  in  the  committee  of  education,  which 
is  organizing  relief  centres  for  the  school-children, 
and  is  giving  everything  to  that.  As  education  and 
horses  are  incommensurables,  V.  A.  promised  me  the 
co-operation  of  the  committee  if  we  would  start 
centres  for  feeding  the  school-children  and  send 
detailed  information  about  it.  I  felt  it  awkward 
to  ask  her  for  money  on  the  spot,  for  people  beg  and 
beg  of  her  and  fleece  her  like  a  fox.  I  only  asked 
her  when  she  had  any  committees  and  board  meetings 


290  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

not    to    forget    us,    and    she    promised    she    would 
not.   .   .   . 

If  any  roubles  or  half-roubles  come  in  I  will  send 
them  on  to  you  without  delay.  Dispose  of  me  and 
believe  me  that  it  would  be  a  real  happiness  to  me 
to  do  at  least  something,  for  so  far  I  have  done  abso- 
lutely nothing  for  the  famine-stricken  peasants  and 
for  those  who  are  helping  them. 

To  A.  I.  Smagin. 

Moscow, 
December  11,  1891. 

.  .  .  Well,  now  I  have  something  to  tell  you,  my 
good  sir.  I  am  sitting  at  home  in  Moscow,  but  mean- 
time my  enterprise  in  the  Nizhni  Novgorod  province 
is  in  full  swing  already!  Together  with  my  friend 
the  Zemsky  Natchalnik,  an  excellent  man,  we  are 
hatching  a  little  scheme,  on  which  we  expect  to  spend 
a  hundred  thousand  or  so,  in  the  most  remote  section 
of  the  province,  where  there  are  no  landowners  nor 
doctors,  nor  even  well-educated  young  ladies  who  are 
now  to  be  found  in  numbers  even  in  hell.  Apart 
from  famine  relief  of  all  sorts,  we  are  making  it  our 
chief  object  to  save  the  crops  of  next  year.  Owing 
to  the  fact  that  the  peasants  are  selling  their  horses 
for  next  to  nothing,  there  is  a  grave  danger  that  the 
fields  will  not  be  ploughed  for  the  spring  corn,  so 
that  the  famine  will  be  repeated  next  year.  So  we 
are  going  to  buy  up  the  horses  and  feed  them,  and 
in  spring  give  them  back  to  their  owners;  our  work 
is  already  firmly  established,  and  in  January  I  am 
going  there  to  behold  its  fruits.  Here  is  my  object 
in  writing  to  you.     If  in  the  course  of  some  noisy 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  291 

banquet  you  or  anyone  else  should  chance  to  collect, 
if  only  half  a  rouble,  for  the  famine  fund,  or  if  some 
Korobotchka  bequeaths  a  rouble  for  that  object,  or 
if  you  yourself  should  win  a  hundred  roubles,  remem- 
ber us  sinners  in  your  prayers,  and  spare  us  a  part  of 
your  wealth!  Not  at  once  but  when  you  like,  only 
not  later  than  in  the  spring.   .   .   . 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Moscow, 
December  11,  1891. 

...  I  am  coming  to  you.  My  lying  is  uninten- 
tional. I  have  no  money  at  all.  I  shall  come  when 
I  get  the  various  sums  owing  to  me.  Yesterday  I 
got  one  hundred  and  fifty  roubles,  I  shall  soon  get 
more,  then  I  shall  fly  to  you. 

In  January  I  am  going  to  Nizhni  Novgorod  prov- 
ince :  there  my  scheme  is  working  already.  I  am  very, 
very  glad.     I  am  going  to  write  to  Anna  Pavlovna. 

Ah,  if  you  knew  how  agonizingly  my  head 
aches  to-day!  I  want  to  come  to  Petersburg  if  only 
to  lie  motionless  indoors  for  two  days  and  only  go  out 
to  dinner.  For  some  reason  I  feel  utterly  exhausted. 
It's  all  this  cursed  influenza. 

How  many  persons  could  you  and  would  you 
undertake  to  feed?  Tolstoy!  ah,  Tolstoy!  In 
these  days  he  is  not  a  man  but  a  super-man,  a  Jupiter. 
In  the  Sbornik  he  has  published  an  article  about  the 
relief  centres,  and  the  article  consists  of  advice  and 
practical  instructions.  So  business-like,  simple,  and 
sensible  that,  as  the  editor  of  Russkiya  Vyedo- 
mosti  said,  it  ought  to  be  printed  in  the  Govern- 
ment Gazette^  instead  of  in  the  Sbornik.   .   .   . 


292  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

December  13,  1891. 

Now  I  understand  why  you  don't  sleep  well  at 
night.  If  I  had  written  a  story  like  that  I  should  not 
have  slept  for  ten  nights  in  succession.  The  most 
terrible  passage  is  where  Varya  strangles  the  hero 
and  initiates  him  into  the  mysteries  of  the  life  beyond 
the  grave.  It's  terrifying  and  consistent  with  spirit- 
ualism. You  mustn't  cut  out  a  single  word  from 
Varya's  speeches,  especially  where  they  are  both 
riding  on  horseback.  Don't  touch  it.  The  idea  of 
the  story  is  good,  and  the  incidents  are  fantastic  and 
interesting.   .   .   . 

But  why  do  you  talk  of  our  "nervous  age"? 
There  really  is  no  nervous  age.  As  people  lived  in 
the  past  so  they  live  now,  and  the  nerves  of  to-day 
are  no  worse  than  the  nerves  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob.  Since  you  have  already  written  the  ending 
I  shall  not  put  you  out  by  sending  you  mine.  I  was 
inspired  and  could  not  resist  writing  it.  You  can 
read  it  if  you  like.  Stories  are  good  in  this  way, 
that  one  can  sit  over  them,  pen  in  hand,  for  days 
together,  and  not  notice  how  time  passes,  and  at  the 
same  time  be  conscious  of  life  of  a  sort.  That's 
from  the  hygienic  point  of  view.  And  from  the  point 
of  view  of  usefulness  and  so  on,  to  write  a  fairly  good 
story  and  give  the  reader  ten  to  twenty  interesting 
minutes — that,  as  Gilyarovsky  says,  is  not  a  sheep 
sneezing.   .   .   . 

I  have  a  horrible  headache  again  to-day.  I  don't 
know  what  to  do.  Yes,  I  suppose  it's  old  age,  or  if 
it's  not  that  it's  something  worse. 

A  little  old  gentleman  brought  me  one  hundred 
roubles  to-day  for  the  famine. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  293 


To  A.  I.  Smagin. 

Moscow, 
December  16,  1891. 

.  .  .  Alas!  if  I  don't  move  into  the  country  this 
year,  and  if  the  purchase  of  the  house  and  land  for 
some  reason  does  not  come  off,  I  shall  be  playing  the 
part  of  a  great  villain  in  regard  to  my  health.  It 
seems  to  me  that  I  am  dried  and  warped  like  an  old 
cupboard,  and  that  if  I  go  on  living  in  Moscow  next 
season,  and  give  myself  up  to  scribbling  excesses, 
Gilyarovsky  will  read  an  excellent  poem  to  welcome 
my  entrance  into  that  country  place  where  there  is 
neither  sitting  nor  standing  nor  sneezing,  but  only 
lying  down  and  nothing  more.  Do  you  know  why 
you  have  no  success  with  women  ?  Because  you  have 
the  most  hideous,  heathenish,  desperate,  tragic  hand- 
writing.  .   .   . 

To  A.  N.  Pleshtcheyev. 

Moscow, 
December  25,  1891. 

Dear  Alexey  Nikolaevitch, 

Yesterday  I  chanced  to  learn  your  address, 
and  I  write  to  you.  If  you  have  a  free  minute  please 
write  to  me  how  you  are  in  health,  and  how  you  are 
getting  on  altogether.    Write,  if  only  a  couple  of  lines. 

I  have  had  influenza  for  the  last  six  weeks.  There 
has  been  a  complication  of  the  lungs  and  I  have  a 
cruel  cough.  In  March  I  am  going  south  to  the  prov- 
ince of  Poltava,  and  shall  stay  there  till  my  cough 
is  gone.  My  sister  has  gone  down  there  to  buy  a 
house  and  garden. 


294  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Literary  doings  here  are  quiet  but  life  is  bustling. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  the  famine,  and 
a  great  deal  of  work  resulting  from  the  said  talk. 
The  theatres  are  empty,  the  weather  is  wretched,  there 
are  no  frosts  at  all.  Jean  Shtcheglov  is  captivated 
by  the  Tolstoyans.  Merezhkovsky  sits  at  home  as  of 
old,  lost  in  a  labyrinth  of  deep  researches,  and  as  of 
old  is  very  nice ;  of  Chekhov  they  say  he  has  married 
the  heiress  Sibiryakov  and  got  five  millions  dowry — 
all  Petersburg  is  talking  of  it.  For  whose  benefit 
and  for  what  object  this  slander,  I  am  utterly  unable 
to  imagine.  It's  positively  sickening  to  read  letters 
from  Petersburg. 

I  have  not  seen  Ostrovsky  this  year.   .   .   . 

We  shall  probably  not  meet  very  soon,  as  I  am 
going  away  in  March  and  shall  not  return  to  the  North 
before  November.  I  shall  not  keep  a  flat  in  Moscow, 
as  that  pleasure  is  beyond  my  means.  I  shall  stay 
in  Petersburg. 

I  embrace  you  warmly.  By  the  way,  a  little 
explanation  in  private.  One  day  at  dinner  in  Paris, 
persuading  me  to  remain  there,  you  offered  to  lend 
me  money.  I  refused,  and  it  seemed  to  me  my  refusal 
hurt  and  vexed  you,  and  I  fancied  that  when  we 
parted  there  was  a  touch  of  coldness  on  your  side. 
Possibly  I  am  mistaken,  but  if  I  am  right  I  assure 
you,  my  dear  friend,  on  my  word  of  honour,  that  I 
refused  not  because  I  did  not  care  to  be  under  an 
obligation  to  you,  but  simply  from  a  feeling  of  self- 
preservation;  I  was  behaving  stupidly  in  Paris,  and 
an  extra  thousand  francs  would  only  have  been  bad  for 
my  health.  Believe  me  that  if  I  had  needed  it,  I 
would  have  asked  you  for  a  loan  as  readily  as  Suvorin. 

God  keep  you. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  295 


To  V.  A.  TiHONOv. 

Moscow, 
February  22,  1892. 

.  .  .  You  are  mistaken  in  thinking  you  were 
drunk  at  Shtcheglov's  name-day  party.  You  had  had 
a  drop,  that  was  all.  You  danced  when  they  all 
danced,  and  your  jigitivka  on  the  cabman's  box 
excited  nothing  but  general  delight.  As  for  your 
criticism,  it  was  most  likely  far  from  severe,  as  I  don't 
remember  it.  I  only  remember  that  Vvedensky  and 
I  for  some  reason  roared  with  laughter  as  we  listened 
to  you. 

Do  you  want  my  biography?  Here  it  is.  I  was 
born  in  Taganrog  in  1860.  I  finished  the  course  at 
Taganrog  high  school  in  1879.  In  1884  I  took  my 
degree  in  medicine  at  the  University  of  Moscow.  In 
1888  I  gained  the  Pushkin  prize.  In  1890  I  made  a 
journey  to  Sahalin  across  Siberia  and  back  by  sea. 
In  1891  I  made  a  tour  in  Europe,  where  I  drank 
excellent  wine  and  ate  o\"sters.  In  1892  I  took  part 
in  an  orgy  in  the  company  of  V.  A.  Tihonov  at  a 
name-day  party.  I  began  writing  in  1879.  The 
published  collections  of  my  works  are:  "Motley 
Tales,"  "In  the  Twihght,"  "Stories,"  "Surly 
People,"  and  a  novel,  "The  Duel."  I  have  sinned 
in  the  dramatic  line  too,  though  with  moderation. 
I  have  been  translated  into  all  the  languages  with 
the  exception  of  the  foreign  ones,  though  I  have 
indeed  long  ago  been  translated  by  the  Germans. 
The  Czechs  and  the  Serbs  approve  of  me  also,  and 
the  French  are  not  indifferent.  The  mysteries  of 
love  I  fathomed  at  the  age  of  thirteen.     With  my 


296  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

colleagues,  doctors,  and  literary  men  alike,  I  am  on 
the  best  of  terms.  I  am  a  bachelor.  I  should  like 
to  receive  a  pension.  I  practice  medicine,  and  so 
much  so  that  sometimes  in  the  summer  I  perform 
post-mortems,  though  I  have  not  done  so  for  two  or 
three  years.  Of  authors  my  favourite  is  Tolstoy,  of 
doctors  Zaharin. 

All  that  is  nonsense  though.     Write  what  you  like. 
If  you  haven't  facts  make  up  with  lyricism. 


To    A.    S.    KiSELYOV. 

Melihovo, 
Station  Lopasnya, 

Moscow-Kursk  Line.. 
March  7,  1892. 

This  is  our  new  address.  And  here  are  the  details 
for  you.  If  a  peasant  woman  has  no  troubles  she 
buys  a  pig.  We  have  bought  a  pig,  too,  a  big 
cumbersome  estate,  the  owner  of  which  would  in 
Germany  infallibly  be  made  a  herzog.  Six  hundred 
and  thirty-nine  acres  in  two  parts  with  land  not  ours 
in  between.  Three  hundred  acres  of  young  copse, 
which  in  twenty  years  will  look  like  a  wood,  at  present 
is  a  thicket  of  bushes.  They  call  it  "shaft  wood," 
but  to  my  mind  the  name  of  "switch  wood"  would  be 
more  appropriate,  since  one  could  make  nothing  of 
it  at  present  but  switches.  There  is  a  fruit-garden, 
a  park,  big  trees,  long  avenues  of  limes.  The  barns 
and  sheds  have  been  recently  built,  and  have  a 
fairly  presentable  appearance.  The  poultry  house 
is  made  in  accordance  with  the  latest  deductions  of 
science,  the  well  has  an  iron  pump.  The  whole  place 
is  shut  off  from  the  world  by  a  fence  in  the  style  of  a 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  297 

palisade.  The  yard,  the  garden,  the  park,  and  the 
threshing-floor  are  shut  off  from  each  other  in  the 
same  way.  The  house  is  good  and  bad.  It's  more 
roomy  than  our  Moscow  flat,  it's  light  and  warm, 
roofed  with  iron,  and  stands  in  a  hne  position,  has 
a  verandah  into  the  garden,  French  windows,  and  so 
on,  but  it  is  bad  in  not  being  lofty,  not  sufficiently 
new,  having  outside  a  very  stupid  and  naive  appear- 
ance, and  inside  swarms  with  bugs  and  beetles  which 
could  only  be  got  rid  of  by  one  means — a  fire :  noth- 
ing else  would  do  for  them. 

There  are  flower-beds.  In  the  garden  fifteen 
paces  from  the  house  is  a  pond  (thirty-five  yards  long, 
and  thirty-five  feet  wide) ,  with  carp  and  tench  in  it,  so 
that  you  can  catch  fish  from  the  window.  Beyond 
the  yard  there  is  another  pond,  which  I  have  not  yet 
seen.  In  the  other  part  of  the  estate  there  is  a  river, 
probably  a  nasty  one.  Two  miles  away  there  is  a 
broad  river  full  of  fish.  We  shall  sow  oats  and  clover. 
We  have  bought  clover  seed  at  ten  roubles  a  pood, 
but  we  have  no  money  left  for  oats.  The  estate  has 
been  bought  for  thirteen  thousand.  The  legal  for- 
malities cost  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty  roubles, 
total  fourteen  thousand.  The  artist  who  sold  it  was 
paid  four  thousand  down,  and  received  a  mortgage 
for  five  thousand  at  five  per  cent,  for  five  years. 
The  remaining  four  thousand  the  artist  will  receive 
from  the  Land  Bank  when  in  the  spring  I  mortgage  the 
estate  to  a  bank.  You  see  what  a  good  arrangement. 
In  two  or  three  years  I  shall  have  five  thousand,  and 
shall  pay  off  the  mortgage,  and  shall  be  left  with  only 
the  four  thousand  debt  to  the  bank;  but  I  have  got  to 
live  those  two  of  three  years,  hang  it  all!  What 
matters  is  not  the  interest — that  is  small,  not  more 


298  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

than  five  hundred  roubles  a  year — but  that  I  shall 
be  obliged  all  the  time  to  think  about  quarter-days 
and  all  sorts  of  horrors  attendant  on  being  in  debt. 
Moreover,  your  honour,  as  long  as  I  am  alive  and 
earning  four  or  five  thousand  a  year,  the  debts  will 
seem  a  trifle,  and  even  a  convenience,  for  to  pay  four 
hundred  and  seventy  interest  is  much  easier  than  to 
pay  a  thousand  for  a  flat  in  Moscow;  that  is  all  true. 
But  what  if  I  depart  from  you  sinners  to  another 
world — that  is,  give  up  the  ghost?  Then  the  ducal 
estate  with  the  debts  would  seem  to  my  parents  in 
their  green  old  age  and  to  my  sister  such  a  burden 
that  they  would  raise  a  wail  to  heaven. 

I  was  completely  cleaned  out  over  the  move. 

Ah,  if  you  could  come  and  see  us!  In  the  first 
place  it  would  be  very  delightful  and  interesting  to 
see  you;  and  in  the  second,  your  advice  would  save 
us  from  a  thousand  idiocies.  You  know  we  don't 
understand  a  thing  about  it.  Like  Raspluev,  all  I 
know  about  agriculture  is  that  the  earth  is  black, 
and  nothing  more.  Write.  How  is  it  best  to  sow 
clover? — among  the  rye,  or  among  the  spring 
wheat?  .   .   . 


To  L  L.  Shtcheglov. 

Melihovo, 
March  9,  1892. 

.  .  .  Yes,  such  men  as  Ratchinsky  are  very  rare 
in  this  world.  I  understand  your  enthusiasm,  my 
dear  fellow.  After  the  suffocation  one  feels  in  the 
proximity  of  A.  and  B. — and  the  world  is  full  of 
them — Ratchinsky  with  his  ideas,  his  humanity,  and 
his  purity,  seems  like  a  breath  of  spring.      I  am  ready 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  299 

to  lay  down  my  life  for  Ratchinsky;  but,  dear  friend, 
— allow  me  that  "but"  and  don't  be  vexed — I  would 
not  send  my  children  to  his  school.  Why?  I  re- 
ceived a  religious  education  in  my  childhood — with 
church  singing,  with  reading  of  the  "apostles"  and 
the  psalms  in  church,  with  regular  attendance  at 
matins,  with  obligation  to  assist  at  the  altar  and  ring 
the  bells.  And,  do  you  know,  when  I  think  now  of 
my  childhood,  it  seems  to  me  rather  gloomy.  I  have 
no  religion  now.  Do  you  know,  when  my  brothers 
and  I  used  to  stand  in  the  middle  of  the  church  and 
sing  the  trio  "May  my  prayer  be  exalted,"  or  "The 
Archangel's  Voice,"  everyone  looked  at  us  with 
emotion  and  envied  our  parents,  but  we  at  that  mo- 
ment felt  like  little  convicts.  Yes,  dear  boy! 
Ratchinsky  I  understand,  but  the  children  who  are 
trained  by  him  I  don't  know.  Their  souls  are  dark 
for  me.  If  there  is  joy  in  their  souls,  then  they  are 
happier  than  I  and  my  brothers,  whose  childhood  was 
suffering. 

It  is  nice  to  be  a  lord.  There  is  plenty  of  room, 
it's  warm,  people  are  not  continually  pulling  at  the 
bell;  and  it  is  easy  to  descend  from  one's  lordship 
and  serve  as  concierge  or  porter.  My  estate,  sir,  cost 
thirteen  thousand,  and  I  have  only  paid  a  third,  the 
rest  is  a  debt  which  will  keep  me  long  years  on  the 
chain. 

Come  and  see  me,  Jean,  together  with  Suvorin. 
Make  a  plan  with  him.  I  have  such  a  garden! 
Such  a  naive  courtyard,  such  geese!  Write  a  little 
oftener. 


300  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Melihovo, 
March  17,  1892. 

.  .  .  Ah,  my  dear  fellow,  if  only  you  could  take 
a  holiday!  Living  in  the  country  is  inconvenient^ 
The  insufferable  time  of  thaw  and  mud  is  beginning, 
but  something  marvellous  and  moving  is  taking 
place  in  nature,  the  poetry  and  novelty  of  which 
makes  up  for  all  the  discomforts  of  life.  Every  day 
there  are  surprises,  one  better  than  another.  The 
starlings  have  returned,  everywhere  there  is  the 
gurgling  of  water,  in  places  where  the  snow  has 
thawed  the  grass  is  already  green.  The  day  drags 
on  like  eternity.  One  lives  as  though  in  Australia, 
somewhere  at  the  ends  of  the  earth;  one's  mood  is 
calm,  contemplative,  and  animal,  in  the  sense  that 
one  does  not  regret  yesterday  or  look  forward  to  to- 
morrow. From  here,  far  away,  people  seem  very 
good,  and  that  is  natural,  for  in  going  away  into  the 
country  we  are  not  hiding  from  people  but  from 
our  vanity,  which  in  town  among  people  is  un- 
just and  active  beyond  measure.  Looking  at  the 
spring,  I  have  a  dreadful  longing  that  there  should 
be  paradise  in  the  other  world.  In  fact,  at  moments 
I  am  so  happy  that  I  superstitiously  pull  myself  up 
and  remind  myself  of  my  creditors,  who  will  one  day 
drive  me  out  of  the  Australia  I  have  so  happily 
won. 


•      •      • 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  301 


To  Madame  Avilov. 

Melihovo, 
March  19,  1892. 

Honoured  Lidya  Alexyevna, 

I  have  read  your  story  "On  the  Road."  If  I 
were  the  editor  of  an  illustrated  magazine,  I  should 
publish  the  story  with  great  pleasure ;  but  here  is  my 
advice  as  a  reader:  when  you  depict  sad  or  unlucky 
people,  and  want  to  touch  the  reader's  heart,  try  to 
be  colder — it  gives  their  grief  as  it  were  a  background, 
against  which  it  stands  out  in  greater  relief.  As  it 
is,  your  heroes  weep  and  you  sigh.  Yes,  you  must 
be  cold. 

But  don't  listen  to  me,  I  am  a  bad  critic.  I  have 
not  the  faculty  of  forming  my  critical  ideas  clearly. 
Sometimes  I  make  a  regular  hash  of  it.   .   .   . 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 


Melihovo, 

March,  1892. 


The  cost  of  labour  is  almost  nil,  and  so  I  am  very 
well  off.  I  begin  to  see  the  charms  of  capitalism. 
To  pull  down  the  stove  in  the  servants'  quarters  and 
build  up  there  a  kitchen  stove  with  all  its  accessories, 
then  to  pull  down  the  kitchen  stove  in  the  house  and 
put  up  a  Dutch  stove  instead,  costs  twenty  roubles 
altogether.  The  price  of  two  men  to  dig,  twenty- 
five  kopecks.  To  fill  the  ice  cellar  it  costs  thirty 
kopecks  a  day  to  the  workmen.  A  young  labourer 
who  does  not  drink  or  smoke,  and  can  read  and 
write,  whose  duties  are  to  work  the  land  and  clean 


302  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

the  boots  and  look  after  the  flower-garden,  costs  five 
roubles  a  month.  Floors,  partitions,  papering  walls 
— all  that  is  cheaper  than  mushrooms.  And  I  am 
at  ease.  But  if  I  were  to  pay  for  labour  a  quarter 
of  what  I  get  for  my  leisure  I  should  be  ruined  in 
a  month,  as  the  number  of  stove-builders,  carpenters, 
joiners,  and  so  on,  threatens  to  go  for  ever  after  the 
fashion  of  a  recurring  decimal.  A  spacious  life  not 
cramped  within  four  walls  requires  a  spacious  pocket 
too.  I  have  bored  you  already,  but  I  must  tell  you 
one  thing  more:  the  clover  seed  costs  one  hundred 
roubles  a  pood^  and  the  oats  needed  for  seed  cost 
more  than  a  hundred.  Think  of  that !  Tliey  proph- 
esy a  harvest  and  wealth  for  me,  but  what  is  that 
to  me!  Better  five  kopecks  in  the  present  than  a 
rouble  in  the  future.  I  must  sit  and  work.  I  must 
earn  at  least  five  hundred  roubles  for  all  these  trifles. 
I  have  earned  half  already.  And  the  snow  is  melt- 
ing, it  is  warm,  the  birds  are  singing,  the  sky  is  bright 
and  spring-like. 

I  am  reading  a  mass  of  things.  I  have  read 
Lyeskov's  "Legendary  Characters,"  religious  and 
piquant — a  combination  of  virtue,  piety,  and  lewd- 
ness, but  very  interesting.  Read  it  if  you  haven't 
read  it.  I  have  read  again  Pisarev's  "Criticism  of 
Pushkin."  Awfully  naive.  The  man  pulls  Onye- 
gin  and  Tatyana  down  from  their  pedestals,  but 
Pushkin  remains  unhurt.  Pisarev  is  the  grandfather 
and  father  of  all  the  critics  of  to-day,  including 
Burenin — the  same  pettiness  in  disparagement,  the 
same  cold  and  conceited  wit,  and  the  same  coarseness 
and  indelicacy  in  their  attitude  to  people.  It  is  not 
Pisarev's  ideas  that  are  brutalizing,  for  he  has  none, 
but  his  coarse  tone.     His  attitude  to  Tatyana,  es- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV       ^      303 

pecially  to  her  charming  letter,  which  I  love  tenderly, 
seems  to  me  simply  abominable.  The  critic  has  the 
foul  aroma  of  an  insolent  captious  procurator. 

We  have  almost  finished  furnishing;  only  the 
shelves  for  my  books  are  not  done  yet.  When  we 
take  out  the  double  windows  we  shall  begin  painting 
everything  afresh,  and  then  the  house  will  have  a  very 
presentable  appearance. 

There  are  avenues  of  lime-trees,  apple-trees, 
cherries,  plums,  and  raspberries  in  the  garden.   .   .   . 


Melihovo, 

April  6,  1892. 

It  is  Easter.  There  is  a  church  here,  but  no  clergy. 
We  collected  eleven  roubles  from  the  whole  parish 
and  got  a  priest  from  the  Davydov  Monastery,  who  be- 
gan celebrating  the  service  on  Friday.  The  church 
is  very  old  and  chilly,  with  lattice  windows.  We 
sang  the  Easter  service — that  is,  my  family  and  my 
visitors,  young  people.  The  effect  was  very  good 
and  harmonious,  particularly  the  mass.  The  peas- 
ants were  very  much  pleased,  and  they  say  they  have 
never  had  such  a  grand  service.  Yesterday  the  sun 
shone  all  day,  it  was  warm.  In  the  morning  I  went 
into  the  fields,  from  which  the  snow  has  gone  already, 
and  spent  half  an  hour  in  the  happiest  frame  of  mind: 
it  was  amazingly  nice!  The  winter  corn  is  green 
already,  and  there  is  grass  in  the  copse. 

You  will  not  like  Melihovo,  at  least  at  first.  Here 
everything  is  in  miniature;  a  little  avenue  of  lime- 
trees,  a  pond  the  size  of  an  aquarium,  a  little  garden 
and  park,  little  trees;  but  when  you  have  walked 
about  it  once  or  twice  the  impression  of  littleness 


304  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

goes  off.  There  is  great  feeling  of  space  in  spite  of 
the  village  being  so  near.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
forest  around.  There  are  numbers  of  starlings,  and 
the  starling  has  the  right  to  say  of  itself:  "I  sing  to 
my  God  all  the  days  of  my  life."  It  sings  all  day 
long  without  stopping.   .   .   . 


Melihovo, 

April  8,  1892. 

If  Shapiro  were  to  present  me  with  the  gigantic 
photograph  of  which  you  write,  I  should  not  know 
what  to  do  with  it.  A  cumbersome  present.  You 
say  that  I  used  to  be  younger.  Yes,  imagine! 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  I  have  passed  thirty  some 
time  ago,  and  I  already  feel  forty  close  at  hand.  I 
have  grown  old  not  in  body  only,  but  in  spirit.  I 
have  become  stupidly  indifferent  to  everything  in  the 
world,  and  for  some  reason  or  other  the  beginning  of 
this  indifference  coincided  with  my  tour  abroad.  I 
get  up  and  go  to  bed  feeling  as  though  interest  in 
life  had  dried  up  in  me.  This  is  either  the  illness 
called  in  the  newspapers  nervous  exhaustion,  or  some 
working  of  the  spirit  not  clear  to  the  consciousness, 
'which  is  called  in  novels  a  spiritual  revulsion.  If  it 
is  the  latter  it  is  all  for  the  best,  I  suppose. 

****** 

The  artist  Levitan  is  staying  with  me.  Yesterday 
evening  I  went  out  with  him  shooting.  He  shot  at  a 
snipe;  the  bird,  shot  in  the  wing,  fell  into  a  pool.  I 
picked  it  up:  a  long  beak,  big  black  eyes,  and  beau- 
tiful plumage.  It  looked  at  me  with  surprise.  What 
was  I  to  do  with  it?  Levitan  scowled,  shut  his  eyes, 
and  begged  me,  with  a  quiver  in  his  voice:  "My  dear 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  305 

fellow,  hit  him  on  the  head  with  the  butt-end  of  your 
gun."  I  said:  "I  can't."  He  went  on  nervously, 
shrugging  his  shoulders,  twitching  his  head  and  beg- 
ging me  to;  and  the  snipe  went  on  looking  at  me  in 
wonder.  I  had  to  obey  Levitan  and  kill  it.  One 
beautiful  creature  in  love  the  less,  while  two  fools 
went  home  and  sat  down  to  supper. 

Jean  Shtcheglov,  in  whose  company  you  were  so 
bored  for  a  whole  evening,  is  a  great  opponent  of 
every  sort  of  heresy,  and  amongst  others  of  feminine 
intellect;  and  yet  if  one  compares  him  with  K.,  for 
instance,  beside  her  he  seems  like  a  foolish  little 
monk.  By  the  way,  if  you  see  K.,  give  her  my  greet- 
ings, and  tell  her  that  we  are  expecting  her  here. 
She  is  very  interesting  in  the  open  air  and  far  more 
intelligent  than  in  town.   .   .   . 


To  Madame  Avilov. 

Melihovo, 
April  29,  1892. 

.  .  .  Yes,  it  is  nice  now  in  the  country,  not  only 
nice  but  positively  amazing.  It's  real  spring,  the 
trees  are  coming  out,  it  is  hot.  The  nightingales  are 
singing,  and  the  frogs  are  croaking  in  all  sorts  of 
tones.  I  haven't  a  halfpenny,  but  the  way  I  look  at  it 
is  this:  the  rich  man  is  not  he  who  has  plenty  of 
money,  but  he  who  has  the  means  to  live  now  in  the 
luxurious  surroundings  given  us  by  early  spring. 
Yesterday  I  was  in  Moscow,  but  I  almost  expired  there 
of  boredom  and  all  manner  of  disasters.  Would  you 
believe  it,  a  lady  of  my  acquaintance,  aged  forty-two, 
recognized  herself  in  the  twenty-year-old  heroine  of 


306  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

my  story,  "The  Grasshopper,"  and  all  Moscow  is  ac- 
cusing me  of  libelling  her.  The  chief  proof  is  the 
external  likeness.  The  lady  paints,  her  husband  is 
a  doctor,  and  she  is  living  with  an  artist. 

I  am  finishing  a  story  ("Ward  No.  6"),  a  very  dull 
one,  owing  to  a  complete  absence  of  woman  and  the 
element  of  love.  I  can't  endure  such  stories.  I 
write  it  as  it  were  by  accident,  thoughtlessly. 

Yes,  I  wrote  to  you  once  that  you  must  be  uncon- 
cerned when  you  write  pathetic  stories.  And  you  did 
not  understand  me.  You  may  weep  and  moan  over 
your  stories,  you  may  suffer  together  with  your  heroes, 
but  I  consider  one  must  do  this  so  that  the  reader 
does  not  notice  it.  The  more  objective,  the  stronger 
will  be  the  effect. 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 


Melihovo, 
May  15,  1892. 


...  I  have  got  hold  of  the  peasants  and  the  shop- 
keepers here.  One  had  a  haemorrhage  from  the 
throat,  another  had  his  arm  crushed  by  a  tree,  a 
third  had  his  little  daughter  sick.  ...  It  seems 
they  would  be  in  a  desperate  case  without  me.  They 
bow  respectfully  to  me  as  Germans  do  to  their  pastor, 
I  am  friends  with  them,  and  all  goes  well.   .   .   . 

May  28,  1892. 

Life  is  short,  and  Chekhov,  from  whom  you  are  ex- 
pecting an  answer,  would  like  it  to  flash  by  brilliantly 
and  with  dash.     He  would  go  to  Prince's  Island,  to 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  307 

Constantinople,  and  again  to  India  and  Sahalin.  .  .  . 
But  in  the  first  place  he  is  not  free,  he  has  a  respect- 
able family  who  need  his  protection.  In  the  second, 
he  has  a  large  dose  of  cowardice.  Looking  towards 
the  future  I  call  nothing  but  cowardice.  I  am  afraid 
of  getting  into  a  muddle,  and  every  journey  compli- 
cates my  financial  position.  No,  don't  tempt  me 
without  need.     Don't  write  to  me  of  the  sea. 

It  is  hot  here.  There  are  warm  rains,  the  evenings 
are  enchanting.  Three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  here 
there  is  a  good  bathing  place  and  good  sport  for 
picnics,  but  no  time  to  bathe  or  go  to  picnics.  Either 
I  am  writing  and  gnashing  my  teeth,  or  settling 
questions  of  halfpence  with  carpenters  and  labourers. 
Misha  was  cruelly  reprimanded  by  his  superiors  for 
coming  to  me  every  week  instead  of  staying  at  home, 
and  now  there  is  no  one  but  me  to  look  after  the 
farming,  in  which  I  have  no  faith,  as  it  is  on  a  petty 
scale,  and  more  like  a  gentlemanly  hobby  than  real 
work.  I  have  bought  three  mousetraps,  and  catch 
twenty-five  mice  a  day  and  carry  them  away  to  the 
copse.     It  is  lovely  in  the  copse.   .   .   . 

Our  starlings,  old  and  young,  suddenly  flew  away. 
This  puzzled  us,  for  it  won't  be  time  for  their  migra- 
tion for  ever  so  long;  but  suddenly  we  learn  that  the 
other  day  clouds  of  grasshoppers  from  the  south, 
which  were  taken  for  locusts,  flew  over  Moscow. 
One  wonders  how  did  our  starlings  find  out  that  on 
precisely  such  a  day  and  so  many  miles  from  Melihovo 
these  insects  would  fly  past?  Who  told  them  about 
it?     Truly  this  is  a  great  mystery.   .   .   . 

s 


308  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


June  16. 


.   .   .  You  want  me  to  write  my  impressions  to  you. 

My  soul  longs  for  breadth  and  altitude,  but  I  am 
forced  to  lead  a  narrow  life  spent  over  trashy  roubles 
and  kopecks.  There  is  nothing  more  vulgar  than  a 
petty  bourgeois  life  with  its  halfpence,  its  victuals, 
its  futile  talk,  and  its  useless  conventional  virtue ;  my 
heart  aches  from  the  consciousness  that  I  am  working 
for  money,  and  money  is  the  centre  of  all  I  do.  This 
aching  feeling,  together  with  a  sense  of  justice,  makes 
my  writing  a  contemptible  pursuit  in  my  eyes:  I  don't 
respect  what  I  write,  I  am  apathetic  and  bored  with 
myself,  and  glad  that  I  have  medicine  which,  any- 
way, I  practise  not  for  the  sake  of  money.  I  ought 
to  have  a  bath  in  sulphuric  acid  and  flay  off  my  skin, 
and  then  grow  a  new  hide.   .  .   . 

Melihovo, 

1  August  1. 

My  letters  chase  you,  but  do  not  catch  you.  I  have 
written  to  you  often,  and  among  other  places  to  St. 
Moritz.  Judging  from  your  letters  you  have  had 
nothing  from  me.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  cholera 
in  Moscow  and  about  Moscow,  and  it  will  be  in  our 
parts  some  day  soon.  In  the  second  place,  I  have 
been  appointed  cholera  doctor,  and  my  section  in- 
cludes twenty-five  villages,  four  factories,  and  one 
monastery.  I  am  organizing  the  building  of  bar- 
racks, and  so  on,  and  I  feel  lonely,  for  all  the  cholera 
business  is  alien  to  my  heart,  and  the  work,  which  in- 
volves continual  driving  about,  talking,  and  attention 
to  petty  details,  is  exhausting  for  me.  I  have  no  time 
to  write.  Literature  has  been  thrown  aside  for  a  long 
time  now,  and  I  am  poverty-stricken,  as  I  thought  it 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  309 

convenient  for  myself  and  my  independence  to  refuse 
the  remuneration  received  by  the  section  doctors.  I 
am  bored,  but  there  is  a  great  deal  that  is  interesting 
in  cholera  if  you  look  at  it  from  a  detached  point 
of  view.  I  am  sorry  you  are  not  in  Russia.  Material 
for  short  letters  is  being  wasted.  There  is  more 
good  than  bad,  and  in  that  cholera  is  a  great  contrast 
to  the  famine  which  we  watched  in  the  winter.  Now 
all  are  working — they  are  working  furiously.  At 
the  fair  at  Nizhni  they  are  doing  marvels  which  might 
force  even  Tolstoy  to  take  a  respectful  attitude  to 
medicine  and  the  intervention  of  cultured  people 
generally  in  life.  It  seems  as  though  they  had  got  a 
hold  on  the  cholera.  They  have  not  only  decreased 
the  number  of  cases,  but  also  the  percentage  of 
deaths.  In  immense  Moscow  the  cholera  does  not 
exceed  fifty  cases  a  week,  while  on  the  Don  it  is  a 
thousand  a  day — an  impressive  difference.  We 
district  doctors  are  getting  ready;  our  plan  of  action 
is  definite,  and  there  are  grounds  for  supposing  that 
in  our  parts  we  too  shall  decrease  the  percentage  of 
mortality  from  cholera.  We  have  no  assistants,  one 
has  to  be  doctor  and  sanitary  attendant  at  one  and 
the  same  time.  The  peasants  are  rude,  dirty  in  their 
habits,  and  mistrustful;  but  the  thought  that  our 
labours  are  not  thrown  away  makes  all  that  scarcely 
noticeable.  Of  all  the  Serpuhovo  doctors  I  am  the 
most  pitiable;  I  have  a  scurvy  carriage  and  horses, 
I  don't  know  the  roads,  I  see  nothing  by  evening  light, 
I  have  no  money,  I  am  very  quickly  exhausted,  and 
worst  of  all,  I  can  never  forget  that  I  ought  to  be 
writing,  and  I  long  to  spit  on  the  cholera  and  sit  down 
and  write  to  you,  and  I  long  to  talk  to  you.  I  am 
in  absolute  loneliness. 


310  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Our  farming  labours  have  been  crowned  with 
complete  success.  The  harvest  is  considerable, 
and  when  we  sell  the  corn  Melihovo  will  bring  us 
more  than  a  thousand  roubles.  The  kitchen  garden 
is  magnificent.  There  are  perfect  mountains  of 
cucumbers  and  the  cabbage  is  wonderful.  If  it 
were  not  for  the  accursed  cholera  I  might  say  that 
I  have  never  spent  a  summer  so  happily  as  this  one. 

Nothing  has  been  heard  of  cholera  riots  yet. 
There  is  talk  of  some  arrests,  some  manifestoes,  and 
so  on.  They  say  that  A.,  the  writer,  has  been  con- 
demned to  fifteen  years'  penal  servitude.  If  the 
socialists  are  really  going  to  exploit  the  cholera  for 
their  own  ends  I  shall  despise  them.  Revolting 
means  for  good  ends  make  the  ends  themselves  re- 
volting. Let  them  get  a  lift  on  the  backs  of  the  doc- 
tors and  f eldshers,  but  why  lie  to  the  peasants  ?  Why 
persuade  them  that  they  are  right  in  their  ignorance 
and  that  their  coarse  prejudices  are  the  holy  truth? 
If  I  were  a  politician  I  could  never  bring  myself  to 
disgrace  my  present  for  the  sake  of  the  future,  even 
though  I  were  promised  tons  of  felicity  for  an  ounce 
of  mean  lying.  Write  to  me  as  often  as  possible  in 
consideration  of  my  exceptional  position.  I  cannot 
be  in  a  good  mood  now,  and  your  letters  snatch  me 
away  from  cholera  concerns,  and  carry  me  for  a  brief 
space  to  another  world.   .   .   . 

August  16. 

I'll  be  damned  if  I  write  to  you  again.  I  have 
written  to  Abbazzio,  to  St.  Moritz.  I  have  written  a 
dozen  times  at  least,  so  far  you  have  not  sent 
me  one  correct  address,  and  so  not  one  of  my 
letters  has  reached  and  my  long  description  and  lee- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  311 

tures  about  the  cholera  have  been  wasted.  It's  mor- 
tifying. But  what  is  most  mortifying  is  that  after  a 
whole  series  of  letters  from  me  about  our  exertions 
against  the  cholera,  you  all  at  once  write  me  from  gay 
Biarritz  that  you  envy  my  leisure!  Well,  Allah  for- 
give you ! 

Well,  I  am  alive  and  in  good  health.  The  summer 
was  a  splendid  one,  dry,  warm,  abounding  in  the 
fruits  of  the  earth,  but  its  whole  charm  was  from 
July  onwards,  spoilt  by  news  of  the  cholera.  While 
you  were  inviting  me  in  your  letters  first  to  Vienna, 
and  then  to  Abbazzio  I  was  already  one  of  the 
doctors  of  the  Serpuhovo  Zemstvo,  was  trying  to 
catch  the  cholera  by  its  tail  and  organizing  a  new 
section  full  steam.  In  the  morning  I  have  to  see 
patients,  and  in  the  afternoon  drive  about.  I  drive, 
I  give  lectures  to  the  natives,  treat  them,  get  angry 
with  them,  and  as  the  Zemstvo  has  not  granted  me  a 
single  kopeck  for  organizing  the  medical  centres  I 
cadge  from  the  wealthy,  first  from  one  and  then 
from  another.  I  turn  out  to  be  an  excellent  beggar; 
thanks  to  my  beggarly  eloquence,  my  section  has 
two  excellent  barracks  with  all  the  necessaries,  and 
five  barracks  that  are  not  excellent,  but  horrid. 
I  have  saved  the  Zemstvo  from  expenditure  even  on 
disinfectants.  Lime,  vitriol,  and  all  sorts  of  stinking 
stuff  I  have  begged  from  the  manufacturers  for  all 
my  twenty-five  villages.  In  fact  Kolomin  ought  to 
be  proud  of  having  been  at  the  same  high  school  with 
me.  My  soul  is  exhausted.  I  am  bored.  Not 
to  belong  to  oneself,  to  think  about  nothing  but 
diarrhoea,  to  start  up  in  the  night  at  a  dog's  barking 
and  a  knock  at  the  gate  ("Haven't  they  come 
for  me?"),  to   drive  with   disgusting  horses  along 


312  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

unknown  roads;  to  read  about  nothing  but  cholera, 
and  to  expect  nothing  but  cholera,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  be  utterly  uninterested  in  that  disease,  and 
in  the  people  whom  one  is  serving — that,  my  good 
sir,  is  a  hash  which  w^ouldn't  agree  with  anyone. 
The  cholera  is  already  in  Moscow  and  in  the  Moscow 
district.  One  must  expect  it  from  hour  to  hour. 
Judging  from  its  course  in  Moscow  one  must  suppose 
that  it  is  already  declining  and  that  the  bacillus  is 
losing  its  strength.  One  is  bound  to  think,  too, 
that  it  is  powerfully  affected  by  the  measures  that 
have  been  taken  in  Moscow  and  among  us.  The 
educated  classes  are  working  vigorously,  sparing 
neither  themselves  nor  their  purses;  I  see  them  every 
day,  and  am  touched,  and  when  I  remember  how 
Zhitel  and  Burenin  used  to  vent  their  acrid  spleen  on 
these  same  educated  people  I  feel  almost  suffocated. 
In  Nizhni  the  doctors  and  the  cultured  people  gener- 
ally have  done  marvels.  I  was  overwhelmed  with 
enthusiasm  when  I  read  about  the  cholera.  In  the 
good  old  times,  when  people  were  infected  and  died 
by  thousands,  the  amazing  conquests  that  are  being 
made  before  our  eyes  could  not  even  be  dreamed  of. 
It's  a  pity  you  are  not  a  doctor  and  cannot  share  my 
delight — that  is,  fully  feel  and  recognize  and  appre- 
ciate all  that  is  being  done.  But  one  cannot  tell 
about  it  brieflv. 

The  treatment  of  cholera  requires  of  the  doctor 
deliberation  before  all  things — that  is,  one  has  to 
devote  to  each  patient  from  five  to  ten  hours  or  even 
longer.  As  I  mean  to  employ  Kantani's  treatment — 
that  is  clysters  of  tannin  and  sub-cutaneous  injection 
of  a  solution  of  common  salt — my  position  will  be 
w^orse  than  foolish;  while  I  am  busying  myself  over 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  313 

one  patient,  a  dozen  can  fall  ill  and  die.  You  see  I 
am  the  only  man  for  twenty-five  villages,  apart 
from  a  feldsher  who  calls  me  "  your  honour,"  does 
not  venture  to  smoke  in  my  presence,  and  cannot  take 
a  step  without  me.  If  there  are  isolated  cases  I  shall 
be  capital;  but  if  there  is  an  epidemic  of  only  five 
cases  a  day,  then  I  shall  do  nothing  but  be  irritable 
and  exhausted  and  feel  myself  guilty. 

Of  course  there  is  no  time  even  to  think  of  litera- 
ture. I  am  writing  nothing.  I  refused  remunera- 
tion so  as  to  preserve  some  little  freedom  of  action 
for  myself,  and  so  I  have  not  a  halfpenny.  I  am 
waiting  till  they  have  threshed  and  sold  the  rye. 
Until  then  I  shall  be  living  on  "The  Bear"  and  mush- 
rooms, of  which  there  are  endless  masses  here.  By 
the  way,  I  have  never  lived  so  cheaply  as  now.  We 
have  everything  of  our  own,  even  our  own  bread.  I 
believe  in  a  couple  of  years  all  my  household  ex- 
penses will  not  exceed  a  thousand  roubles  a  year. 

When  you  learn  from  the  newspapers  that  the 
cholera  is  over,  you  will  know  that  I  have  gone  back 
to  writing  again.  Don't  think  of  me  as  a  literary 
man  while  I  am  in  the  service  of  the  Zemstvo.  One 
can't  do  two  things  at  once. 

You  write  that  I  have  given  up  Sahalin.  I  cannot 
abandon  that  child  of  mine.  When  I  am  oppressed 
by  the  boredom  of  belles-lettres  I  am  glad  to  turn 
to  something  else.  The  question  when  I  shall  finish 
Sahalin  and  when  I  shall  print  does  not  strike  me  as 
being  important.  While  Galkin-Vrasskoy  reigns 
over  the  prison  system  I  feel  very  much  disinclined 
to  bring  out  my  book.  Of  course  if  I  am  driven  to 
it  by  need,  that  is  a  different  matter. 

In  all  my  letters  I  have  pertinaciously  asked  you 


314  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

one  question,  which  of  course  you  are  not  obliged  to 
answer:  "Where  are  you  going  to  be  in  the  autumn, 
and  wouldn't  you  like  to  spend  part  of  September  and 
October  with  me  in  Feodosia  or  the  Crimea?"  I 
have  an  impatient  desire  to  eat,  drink,  and  sleep,  and 
talk  about  literature — that  is,  do  nothing,  and  at  the 
same  time  feel  like  a  decent  person.  However,  if 
my  idleness  annoys  you,  I  can  promise  to  write  with 
or  beside  you,  a  play  or  a  story.  ...  Eh?  Won't 
you?     Well,  God  be  with  you,  then. 

The  astronomer  has  been  here  twice.  I  felt  bored 
with  her  on  both  occasions.  Svobodin  has  been 
here  too.  He  grows  better  and  better.  His  serious 
illness  has  made  him  pass  through  a  spiritual  meta- 
morphosis. 

See  what  a  long  letter  I  have  written,  even  though 
I  don't  feel  sure  that  the  letter  will  reach  you. 
Imagine  my  cholera-boredom,  my  cholera-loneliness, 
and  compulsory  literary  inactivity,  and  write  to  me 
more,  and  oftener.  Your  contemptuous  feeling  for 
France  I  share.  The  Germans  are  far  above  them, 
though  for  some  reason  they  are  called  stupid.  And 
the  Franco-Russian  Entente  Cordiale  I  am  as  fond 
of  as  Tolstoy  is.  There's  something  nastily  sugges- 
tive about  these  cordialities.  On  the  other  hand  I 
was  awfully  pleased  at  Virchow's  visit  to  us. 

We  have  raised  a  very  nice  potato  and  a  divine 
cabbage.  How  do  you  manage  to  get  on  without 
cabbage-soup?  I  don't  envy  you  your  sea,  nor  your 
freedom,  nor  the  happy  frame  of  mind  you  are  in 
abroad.  The  Russian  summer  is  better  than  any- 
thing. And  by  the  way,  I  don't  feel  any  great  long- 
ing to  be  abroad.  After  Singapore,  Ceylon,  and 
perhaps  even  our  Amur,  Italy  and  even  the  crater 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  315 

of  Vesuvius  do  not  seem  fascinating.  After  being  in 
India  and  China  I  did  not  see  a  great  difference  be- 
tween other  European  countries  and  Russia. 

A  neighbour  of  ours,  the  owner  of  the  renowned 
Otrad,  Count  X,  is  staying  now  at  Biarritz,  having  run 
away  from  the  cholera;  he  gave  his  doctor  only  five 
hundred  roubles  for  the  campaign  against  the  cholera. 
His  sister,  the  countess,  who  is  living  in  my  section, 
when  I  went  to  discuss  the  provision  of  barracks  for 
her  workmen,  treated  me  as  though  I  had  come  to  ap- 
ply for  a  situation.  It  mortified  me,  and  I  told  her  a 
lie,  pretending  to  be  a  rich  man.  I  told  the  same  lie 
to  the  Archimandrite,  who  refuses  to  provide  quarters 
for  the  cases  which  may  occur  in  the  monastery.  To 
my  question  what  would  he  do  with  the  cases  that 
might  be  taken  ill  in  his  hostel,  he  answered  me: 
"They  are  persons  of  means  and  will  pay  you  them- 
selves. .  .  ."  Do  you  understand?  And  I  flared 
up,  and  said  I  did  not  care  about  payment,  as  I  was 
well  off,  and  that  all  I  wanted  was  the  security  of 
the  monastery.  .  .  .  There  are  sometimes  very 
stupid  and  humiliating  positions.  .  .  .  Before  the 
count  went  away  I  met  his  wife.  Huge  diamonds  in 
her  ears,  wearing  a  bustle,  and  not  knowing  how  to 
hold  herself.  A  millionaire.  In  the  company  of 
such  persons  one  has  a  stupid  schoolboy  feeling  of 
wanting  to  be  rude. 

The  village  priest  often  comes  and  pays  me  long 
visits;  he  is  a  very  good  fellow,  a  widower,  and  has 
some  illegitimate  children. 

Write  or  there  will  be  trouble.   .   .  . 


316  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Melihovo, 
October  10,  1892. 

Your  telegram  telling  me  of  Svobodin's  death 
caught  me  just  as  I  was  going  out  of  the  yard  to  see 
patients.  You  can  imagine  my  feelings.  Svobodin 
stayed  with  me  this  summer;  he  was  very  sweet  and 
gentle,  in  a  serene  and  affectionate  mood,  and  became 
very  much  attached  to  me.  It  was  evident  to  me  that 
he  had  not  very  long  to  live,  it  was  evident  to  him 
too.  He  had  the  thirst  of  the  aged  for  everyday 
peace  and  quiet,  and  had  grown  to  detest  the  stage 
and  everything  to  do  with  the  stage  and  dreaded 
returning  to  Petersburg.  Of  course  I  ought  to  go  to 
the  funeral,  but  to  begin  with,  your  telegram  came 
towards  evening,  and  the  funeral  is  most  likely  to- 
morrow, and  secondly  the  cholera  is  twenty  miles 
away,  and  I  cannot  leave  my  centre.  There  are  seven 
cases  in  one  village,  and  two  have  died  already. 
The  cholera  may  break  out  in  my  section.  It  is 
strange  that  with  winter  coming  on  the  cholera  is 
spreading  over  a  wider  and  wider  region. 

I  have  undertaken  to  be  the  section  doctor  till 
the  fifteenth  of  October — my  section  will  be  officially 
closed  on  that  day.  I  shall  dismiss  my  feldsher, 
close  the  barracks,  and  if  the  cholera  comes,  I  shall 
cut  rather  a  comic  figure.  Add  to  that  the  doctor 
of  the  next  section  is  ill  with  pleurisy  and  so,  if  the 
cholera  appears  in  his  section,  I  shall  be  bound, 
from  a  feeling  of  comradeship,  to  undertake  his 
section. 

So  far  I  have  not  had  a  single  case  of  cholera,  but 
I  have  had  epidemics  of  typhus,  diphtheria,  scarla- 
tina, and  so  on,.     At  the  beginning  of  summer  I  had 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  317 

a  great  deal  of  work,  then  towards  the  autumn  less 

and  less. 

^  *  *  *  *  * 

The  sum  of  my  Uterary  achievement  this  summer, 
thanks  to  the  cholera,  has  been  almost  nil.  I  have 
written  little,  and  have  thought  about  literature 
even  less.  However,  I  have  written  two  small  stories 
— one  tolerable,  one  bad. 

Life  has  been  hard  work  this  summer,  but  it  seems^ 
to  me  now  that  I  have  never  spent  a  summer  so  well 
as  this  one.  In  spite  of  the  turmoil  of  the  cholera, 
and  the  poverty  which  has  kept  tight  hold  of  me  all 
the  summer,  I  have  liked  the  life  and  wanted  to 
live.  How  many  trees  I  have  planted!  Thanks  to 
our  system  of  cultivation,  Melihovo  has  become  un- 
recognizable, and  seems  now  extraordinarily  snug  and 
beautiful,  though  very  likely  it  is  good  for  nothing. 
Great  is  the  power  of  habit  and  the  sense  of  property* 
And  it's  marvellous  how  pleasant  it  is  not  to  have  to- 
pay  rent.  We  have  made  new  acquaintances  audi, 
formed  new  relations.  Our  old  terrors  in  facing 
the  peasants  now  seem  ludicrous.  I  have  served  in 
the  Zemstvo,  have  presided  at  the  Sanitary  Council 
and  visited  the  factories,  and  I  liked  all  that.  They 
think  of  me  now  as  one  of  themselves,  and  stay  the 
night  with  me  when  they  pass  through  Melihovo. 
Add  to  that,  that  we  have  bought  ourselves  a  new 
comfortable  covered  carriage,  have  made  a  new  road, 
so  that  now  we  don't  drive  through  the  village.  We 
are  digging  a  pond.  .  .  .  Anything  else?  In  fact 
hitherto  everything  has  been  new  and  interesting^ 
but  how  it  will  be  later  on,  I  don't  know.  There  is 
snow  already,  it  is  cold,  but  I  don't  feel  drawn  to 
Moscow.    So  far  I  have  not  had  any  feeling  of  dulness.. 

*  4f  -X-  -X-  -Jf  -x- 


318  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

The  educated  people  here  are  very  charming  and 
interesting.  What  matters  most,  they  are  honest. 
Only  the  police  are  unattractive. 

We  have  seven  horses,  a  broad-faced  calf,  and 
puppies,  called  Muir  and  Merrilees.   .   .   . 

November  22,  1892. 

Snow  is  falling  by  day,  while  at  night  the  moon  is 
shining  its  utmost,  a  gorgeous  amazing  moon.  It 
is  magnificent.  But  nevertheless,  I  marvel  at  the 
fortitude  of  landowners  who  spend  the  winter  in  the 
country;  there's  so  little  to  do  that  if  anyone  is  not 
in  one  way  or  another  engaged  in  intellectual  work, 
he  is  inevitably  bound  to  become  a  glutton  or  a 
drunkard,  or  a  man  like  Turgenev's  Pigasov.  The 
monotony  of  the  snowdrifts  and  the  bare  trees,  the 
long  nights,  the  moonlight,  the  deathlike  stillness 
day  and  night,  the  peasant  women  and  the  old  ladies 
— all  that  disposes  one  to  indolence,  indifference,  and 
an  enlarged  liver.   .   .   . 

November  25,  1892. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  you,  and  there  is  no  need 
for  you  to  abuse  yourself  for  obscurity  of  expression. 
You  are  a  hard  drinker,  and  I  have  regaled  you  with 
sweet  lemonade,  and  you,  after  giving  the  lemonade 
its  due,  justly  observe  that  there  is  no  spirit  in  it. 
That  is  just  what  is  lacking  in  our  productions — 
the  alcohol  which  could  intoxicate  and  subjugate, 
and  you  state  that  very  well.  Why  not?  Putting 
aside  "Ward  No.  6"  and  mvself,  let  us  discuss  the 
matter  in  general,  for  that  is  more  interesting.  Let 
us  discuss  the  general  causes,  if  that  won't  bore  you, 
and  let  us  include  the  whole  age.     Tell  me  honestly, 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  319 

who  of  my  contemporaries — that  is,  men  between 
thirty  and  forty-five — have  given  the  world  one  single 
drop  of  alcohol?  Are  not  Korolenko,  Nadson,  and 
all  the  playwrights  of  to-day,  lemonade?  Have 
Ryepin's  or  Shishkin's  pictures  turned  your  head? 
Charming,  talented,  you  are  enthusiastic;  but  at 
the  same  time  you  can't  forget  that  you  want  to 
smoke.  Science  and  technical  knowledge  are  passing 
through  a  great  period  now,  but  for  our  sort  it  is  a 
flabby,  stale,  and  dull  time.  We  are  stale  and  dull 
ourselves,  we  can  only  beget  gutta-percha  boys,* 
and  the  only  person  who  does  not  see  that  is  Stassov, 
to  whom  nature  has  given  a  rare  faculty  for  getting 
drunk  on  slops.  The  causes  of  this  are  not  to  be 
found  in  our  stupidity,  our  lack  of  talent,  or  our 
insolence,  as  Burenin  imagines,  but  in  a  disease  which 
for  the  artist  is  worse  than  syphilis  or  sexual  exhaus- 
tion. We  lack  "something,"  that  is  true,  and  that 
means  that,  lift  the  robe  of  our  muse,  and  you  will 
find  within  an  empty  void.  Let  me  remind  you  that 
the  writers,  who  we  say  are  for  all  time  or  are  simply 
good,  and  who  intoxicate  us,  have  one  common  and 
very  important  characteristic;  they  are  going  towards 
something  and  are  summoning  you  towards  it,  too, 
and  you  feel  not  with  your  mind,  but  with  your  whole 
being,  that  they  have  some  object,  just  like  the  ghost 
of  Hamlet's  father,  who  did  not  come  and  disturb 
the  imagination  for  nothing.  Some  have  more 
immediate  objects — the  abolition  of  serfdom,  the 
liberation  of  their  country,  politics,  beauty,  or  simply 
vodka,  like  Denis  Davydov;  others  have  remote 
objects — God,  life  beyond  the  grave,  the  happiness 
of  humanity,   and   so   on.     The   best  of  them   are 

*  An  allusion  to  Grigorovitch's  well-known  story. 


320  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

realists  and  paint  life  as  it  is,  but,  through  every 
line's  being  soaked  in  the  consciousness  of  an  object, 
you  feel,  besides  life  as  it  is,  the  life  which  ought 
to  be,  and  that  captivates  you.  And  we?  We! 
We  paint  life  as  it  is,  but  beyond  that — nothing  at 
all.  .  .  .  Flog  us  and  we  can  do  no  more!  We 
have  neither  immediate  nor  remote  aims,  and  in  our 
soul  there  is  a  great  empty  space.  We  have  no 
politics,  we  do  not  believe  in  revolution,  we  have  no 
God,  we  are  not  afraid  of  ghosts,  and  I  personally 
am  not  afraid  even  of  death  and  blindness.  One 
who  wants  nothing,  hopes  for  nothing,  and  fears 
nothing,  cannot  be  an  artist.  Whether  it  is  a  disease 
or  not — what  it  is  does  not  matter;  but  we  ought  to 
recognize  that  our  position  is  worse  than  a  governor's. 
I  don't  know  how  it  will  be  with  us  in  ten  or  twenty 
years — then  circumstances  may  be  different,  but 
meanwhile  it  would  be  rash  to  expect  of  us  anything 
of  real  value,  apart  from  the  question  whether  we 
have  talent  or  not.  We  write  mechanically,  merely 
obeying  the  long-established  arrangement  in  accord- 
ance with  which  some  men  go  into  the  government 
service,  others  into  trade,  others  write.  .  .  .  Grigoro- 
vitch  and  you  think  I  am  clever.  Yes,  I  am  at  least 
so  far  clever  as  not  to  conceal  from  myself  my  disease, 
and  not  to  deceive  myself,  and  not  to  cover  up  my 
own  emptiness  with  other  people's  rags,  such  as  the 
ideas  of  the  sixties,  and  so  on.  I  am  not  going  to 
throw  myself  like  Garshin  over  the  banisters,  but  I 
am  not  going  to  flatter  myself  with  hopes  of  a  better 
future  either.  I  am  not  to  blame  for  my  disease,  and 
it's  not  for  me  to  cure  myself,  for  this  disease,  it  must 
be  supposed,  has  some  good  purpose  hidden  from  us, 
and  is  not  sent  in  vain.   .   .   . 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  321 

February,  1893. 

My  God!  What  a  glorious  thing  "Fathers  and 
Children"  is !  It  is  positively  terrifying.  Bazarov's 
illness  is  so  powerfully  done  that  I  felt  ill  and  had  a 
sensation  as  though  I  had  caught  the  infection  from 
him.  And  the  end  of  Bazarov?  And  the  old  men? 
And  Kukshina?  It's  beyond  words.  It's  simply 
a  work  of  genius.  I  don't  like  the  whole  of  "On  the 
Eve,"  only  Elena's  father  and  the  end.  The  end 
is  full  of  tragedy.  "The  Dog"  is  very  good,  the 
language  is  wonderful  in  it.  Please  read  it  if  you 
have  forgotten  it.  "Acia"  is  charming,  "A  Quiet 
Backwater"  is  too  compressed  and  not  satisfactory. 
I  don't  like  "Smoke"  at  all.  "The  House  of  Gentle- 
folk" is  weaker  than  "Fathers  and  Children,"  but  the 
end  is  like  a  miracle,  too.  Except  for  the  old  woman 
in  "Fathers  and  Children" — that  is,  Bazarov's 
mother — and  the  mothers  as  a  rule,  especially 
the  society  ladies,  who  are,  however,  all  alike  (Liza's 
mother,  Elena's  mother),  and  Lavretsky's  mother, 
who  had  been  a  serf,  and  the  humble  peasant  woman, 
all  Turgenev's  girls  and  women  are  insufferable  in 
their  artificiality,  and — forgive  my  saying  it — falsity. 
Liza  and  Elena  are  not  Russian  girls,  but  some  sort  of 
Pythian  prophetesses,  full  of  extravagant  pretensions. 
Irina  in  "Smoke,"  Madame  Odintsov  in  "Fathers 
and  Children,"  all  the  lionesses,  in  fact,  fiery,  allur- 
ing, insatiable  creatures  for  ever  craving  for  some- 
thing, are  all  nonsensical.  When  one  thinks  of  Tol- 
stoy's "Anna  Karenin,"  all  these  young  ladies  of 
Turgenev's,  with  their  seductive  shoulders,  fade  away 
into  nothing.  The  negative  types  of  women  where 
Turgenev  is  slightly  caricaturing  (Kukshina)  or  jest- 


322  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

ing  (the  descriptions  of  balls)  are  wonderfully  drawn, 
and  so  successful,  that,  as  the  saying  is,  you  can't 
pick  a  hole  in  it. 

The  descriptions  of  nature  are  fine,  but  ...  I 
feel  that  we  have  already  got  out  of  the  way  of 
such  descriptions  and  that  we  need  something  differ- 
ent.  .   .   . 

April  26,  1893. 

...  I  am  reading  Pisemsky.  His  is  a  great,  very 
great  talent !  The  best  of  his  works  is  "The  Carpen- 
ters' Guild."  His  novels  are  exhausting  in  their 
minute  detail.  Everything  in  him  that  has  a  tem- 
porary character,  all  his  digs  at  the  critics  and  liberals 
of  the  period,  all  his  critical  observations  with  their 
assumption  of  smartness  and  modernity,  and  all  the 
so-called  profound  reflections  scattered  here  and  there 
— how  petty  and  naive  it  all  is  to  our  modem  ideas ! 
The  fact  of  the  matter  is  this:  a  novelist,  an  artist, 
ought  to  pass  by  everything  that  has  only  a  temporary 
value.  Pisemsky's  people  are  living,  his  tempera- 
ment is  vigorous.  Skabitchevsky  in  his  history 
attacks  him  for  obscurantism  and  treachery,  but,  my 
God !  of  all  contemporary  writers  I  don't  know  a  single 
one  so  passionately  and  earnestly  liberal  as  Pisem- 
sky. All  his  priests,  officials,  and  generals  are  regular 
blackguards.  No  one  was  so  down  on  the  old  legal 
and  military  set  as  he. 

By  the  way,  I  have  read  also  Bourget's  "Cosmo- 
polis."  Rome  and  the  Pope  and  Correggio  and 
Michael  Angelo  and  Titian  and  doges  and  a  fifty- 
year-old  beauty  and  Russians  and  Poles  are  all  in 
Bourget,  but  how  thin  and  strained  and  mawkish  and 
false  it  is  in  comparison  even  with  our  coarse  and 
simple  Pisemsky!   .   .   . 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  323 

What  a  good  thing  I  gave  up  the  town !  Tell  all 
the  Fofanovs,  Tchermnys,  et  tutti  quanti  who  live  by 
literature,  that  living  in  the  country  is  immensely 
cheaper  than  living  in  the  town.  I  experience  this 
now  every  day.  My  family  costs  me  nothing  now, 
for  lodging,  bread,  vegetables,  milk,  butter,  horses, 
are  all  our  own.  And  there  is  so  much  to  do,  there 
is  not  time  to  get  through  it  all.  Of  the  whole  family 
of  Chekhovs,  I  am  the  only  one  to  lie  down,  or  sit  at 
the  table:  all  the  rest  are  working  from  morning  till 
night.  Drive  the  poets  and  literary  men  into  the 
country.  Why  should  they  live  in  starvation  and 
beggary?  Town  life  cannot  give  a  poor  man  rich 
material  in  the  sense  of  poetry  and  art.  He  lives 
within  four  walls  and  sees  people  only  at  the  editors' 
offices  and  in  eating-shops.   .   .   . 

Melihovo, 
January  25,  1894. 

I  believe  I  am  mentally  sound.  It  is  true  I  have 
no  special  desire  to  live,  but  that  is  not,  so  far,  disease, 
but  something  probably  passing  and  natural.  It 
does  not  follow  every  time  that  an  author  describes 
someone  mentally  deranged,  that  he  is  himself 
deranged.  I  wrote  "The  Black  Monk"  without 
any  melancholy  ideas,  through  cool  reflection.  I 
simply  had  a  desire  to  describe  megalomania.  The 
monk  floating  across  the  country  was  a  dream,  and 
when  I  woke  I  told  Misha  about  it.  So  you  can  tell 
Anna  Ivanovna  that  poor  Anton  Pavlovitch,  thank 
God!  has  not  gone  out  of  his  mind  yet,  but  that  he 
eats  a  great  deal  at  supper  and  so  he  dreams  of 
monks. 

I  keep  forgetting  to  write  to  you:   read  Ertel's 


324  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

story  "The  Seers"  in  "Russkaya  Mysl."  There  is 
poetry  and  something  terrible  in  the  old-fashioned 
fairy-tale  style  about  it.  It  is  one  of  the  best  new 
things  that  has  come  out  in  Moscow.   .  .   . 


Yalta, 
March  27,  1894. 

I  am  in  good  health  generally,  ill  in  certain  parts. 
For  instance,  a  cough,  palpitations  of  the  heart, 
haemorrhoids.  I  had  palpitations  of  the  heart 
incessantly  for  six  days,  and  the  sensation  all  the 
time  was  loathsome.  Since  I  have  quite  given  up 
smoking  I  have  been  free  from  gloomy  and  anxious 
moods.  Perhaps  because  I  am  not  smoking,  Tol- 
stoy's morality  has  ceased  to  touch  me ;  at  the  bottom 
of  my  heart  I  take  up  a  hostile  attitude  towards  it, 
and  that  of  course  is  not  just.  I  have  peasant 
blood  in  my  veins,  and  you  won't  astonish  me  with 
peasant  virtues.  From  my  childhood  I  have  believed 
in  progress,  and  I  could  not  help  believing  in  it 
since  the  difference  between  the  time  when  I  used 
to  be  thrashed  and  when  they  gave  up  thrashing 
me  was  tremendous.  .  .  .  But  Tolstoy's  philosophy 
touched  me  profoundly  and  took  possession  of  me 
for  six  or  seven  years,  and  what  affected  me 
was  not  its  general  propositions,  with  which  I 
was  familiar  beforehand,  but  Tolstoy's  manner  of 
expressing  it,  his  reasonableness,  and  probably 
a  sort  of  hypnotism.  Now  something  in  me  pro- 
tests, reason  and  justice  tell  me  that  in  the  electricity 
and  heat  of  love  for  man  there  is  something 
greater  than  chastity  and  abstinence  from  meat. 
War  is  an   evil   and  legal  justice  is  an   evil;   but 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  325 

it  does  not  follow  from  that  that  I  ought  to  wear 
bark  shoes  and  sleep  on  the  stove  with  the  labourer, 
and  so  on,  and  so  on.  But  that  is  not  the  point,  it  is 
not  a  matter  of  pro  and  con;  the  thing  is  that  in  one 
way  or  another  Tolstoy  has  passed  for  me,  he  is  not 
in  my  soul,  and  he  has  departed  from  me,  saying: 
*T  leave  this  your  house  empty."  I  am  untenanted. 
I  am  sick  of  theorizing  of  all  sorts,  and  such 
bounders  as  Max  Nordau  I  read  with  positive  disgust. 
Patients  in  a  fever  do  not  want  food,  but  they  do 
want  something,  and  that  vague  craving  they  express 
as  "longing  for  something  sour."  I,  too,  want 
something  sour,  and  that's  not  a  mere  chance  feeling, 
for  I  notice  the  same  mood  in  others  around  me.  It 
is  just  as  if  they  had  all  been  in  love,  had  fallen 
out  of  love,  and  now  were  looking  for  some  new 
distraction.  It  is  very  possible  and  very  likely 
that  the  Russians  will  pass  through  another  period 
of  enthusiasm  for  the  natural  sciences,  and  that  the 
materialistic  movement  will  be  fashionable.  Natural 
science  is  performing  miracles  now.  And  it  may  act 
upon  people  like  Mamay,  and  dominate  them  by  its 
mass  and  grandeur.  All  that  is  in  the  hands  of  God, 
however.  And  theorizing  about  it  makes  one's  head 
go  round. 


To  L.  S.  MiziNOv. 

Yalta, 
March  27,  1894. 

Dear  Lika, 

Thanks  for  your  letter.  Though  you  do 
scare  me  in  your  letter  saying  you  are  soon  going  to 
die,  though  you  do  taunt  me  with  having  rejected  you. 


326  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

yet  thank  you  all  the  same ;  I  know  perfectly  well  you 
are  not  going  to  die,  and  that  no  one  has  rejected 
you. 

I  am  in  Yalta  and  I  am  dreary,  very  dreary  indeed. 
The  aristocracy,  so  to  call  it,  are  performing  '"Faust," 
and  I  go  to  the  rehearsals  and  there  I  enjoy  the 
spectacle  of  a  perfect  flower-bed  of  black,  red, 
flaxen,  and  brown  heads;  I  listen  to  the  singing  and 
I  eat.  At  the  house  of  the  principal  of  the  high 
school  I  eat  tchibureks,  and  saddle  of  lamb  with 
boiled  grain ;  in  various  estimable  families  I  eat  green 
soup;  at  the  confectioner's  I  eat — in  my  hotel  also. 
I  go  to  bed  at  ten  and  I  get  up  at  ten,  and  after  dinner 
I  lie  down  and  rest,  and  yet  I  am  bored,  dear  Lika. 
I  am  not  bored  because  "my  ladies"  are  not  with 
me,  but  because  the  northern  spring  is  better  than 
the  spring  here,  and  because  the  thought  that  I 
must,  that  I  ought  to  write  never  leaves  me  for  an 
instant.  To  write  and  write  and  write!  It  is  my 
opinion  that  true  happiness  is  impossible  without 
idleness.  My  ideal  is  to  be  idle  and  to  love  a  plump 
girl.  My  loftiest  happiness  is  to  walk  or  to  sit 
doing  nothing;  my  favourite  occupation  is  to  gather 
up  what  is  not  wanted  (leaves,  straws,  and  so  on) 
and  to  do  what  is  useless.  Meanwhile,  I  am  a  literary 
man,  and  have  to  write  here  in  Yalta.  Dear  Lika, 
when  you  become  a  great  singer  and  are  paid  a 
handsome  salary,  then  be  charitable  to  me,  marry  me, 
and  keep  me  at  your  expense,  that  I  may  be  free  to 
do  nothing.  If  you  really  are  going  to  die,  it  might 
be  undertaken  by  Varya  Eberly,  whom,  as  you  know, 
I  love.  I  am  so  all  to  pieces  with  the  perpetual 
thought  of  work  I  ought  to  do  and  can't  avoid  that 
for  the  last  week  I  have  been  continually  tormented 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  327 

with  palpitations  of  the  heart.  It's  a  loathsome 
sensation. 

I  have  sold  my  fox-skin  greatcoat  for  twenty 
roubles!  It  cost  sixty,  but  as  forty  roubles'  worth 
of  fur  has  peeled  off  it,  twenty  roubles  was  not  too  low 
a  price.  The  gooseberries  are  not  ripe  here  yet,  but 
it  is  warm  and  bright,  the  trees  are  coming  out,  the 
sea  looks  like  summer,  the  young  ladies  are  yearning 
for  sensations:  but  yet  the  north  is  better  than  the 
south  of  Russia,  in  spring  at  any  rate.  In  our  part 
nature  is  more  melancholy,  more  lyrical,  more 
Levitanesque ;  here  it  is  neither  one  thing  nor  the 
other,  like  good,  sonorous,  but  frigid  verse.  Thanks  to 
my  palpitations  I  haven't  drunk  wine  for  a  week,  and 
that  makes  the  surroundings  seem  even  poorer.   .   .  . 

M.  gave  a  concert  here,  and  made  one  hundred 
and  fifty  roubles  clear  profit.  He  roared  like  a 
grampus  but  had  an  immense  success.  I  am  awfully 
sorry  I  did  not  study  singing;  I  could  have  roared 
too,  as  my  throat  is  rich  in  husky  elements,  and  they 
say  I  have  a  real  octave.  I  should  have  earned 
money,  and  been  a  favourite  with  the  ladies.   .   .   . 


To  HIS  Brother  Alexandr. 

Meuhovo, 

April  15,  1894. 

...  I  have  come  back  from  the  Haming  Tavrida 
and  am  already  sitting  on  the  cool  banks  of  my  pond. 
It's  very  warm,  however:  the  thermometer  runs  up 
to  twenty-six.   .   .   . 

I  am  busy  looking  after  the  land:  I  am  making 
new  avenues,  planting  flowers,  chopping  down  dead 


328  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

trees,  and  chasing  the  hens  and  the  dogs  out  of  the 
garden.  Literature  plays  the  part  of  Erakit,  wha 
was  always  in  the  background.  I  don't  want  to 
write,  and  indeed,  it's  hard  to  combine  a  desire  to 
live  and  a  desire  to  write.   .   .   . 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Melihovo, 
April  21,  1894. 

Of  course  it  is  very  nice  in  the  country;  in  fine 
weather  Russia  is  an  extraordinarily  beautiful  and 
enchanting  country,  especially  for  those  who  have 
been  born  and  spent  their  childhood  in  the  country. 
But  you  will  never  buy  yourself  an  estate,  as  you  don't 
know  what  you  want.  To  like  an  estate  you  must 
make  up  your  mind  to  buy  it;  so  long  as  it  is  not  yours 
it  will  seem  comfortless  and  full  of  defects.  My 
cough  is  considerably  better,  I  am  sunburnt,  and  they 
tell  me  I  am  fatter,  but  the  other  day  I  almost  fell 
down  and  I  fancied  for  a  minute  that  I  was  dying. 
I  was  walking  along  the  avenue  with  the  prince, 
our  neighbour,  and  was  talking  when  all  at  once 
something  seemed  to  break  in  my  chest,  I  had  a  feel- 
ing of  warmth  and  suffocation,  there  was  a  singing 
in  my  ears,  I  remembered  that  I  had  been  having 
palpitations  for  a  long  time  and  thought — "they 
must  have  meant  something  then."  I  went  rapidly 
towards  the  verandah  on  which  visitors  were 
sitting,  and  had  one  thought — that  it  would  be 
awkward  to  fall  down  and  die  before  strangers; 
but  I  went  into  my  bedroom,  drank  some  water, 
and  recovered. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  329 

So  you  are  not  the  only  one  who  suffers  from 
staggering ! 

I  am  beginning  to  build  a  pretty  lodge.   .   .   . 

May  9. 

I  have  no  news.  The  weather  is  most  exquisite, 
and  in  the  foliage  near  the  house  a  nightingale  is 
building  and  shouting  incessantly.  About  twelve 
miles  from  me  there  is  the  village  of  Pokrovskoe- 
Meshtcherskoe ;  the  old  manor  house  there  is  now  the 
lunatic  asylum  of  the  province.  The  Zemsky  doc- 
tors from  the  whole  Moscow  province  met  there  on 
the  fourth  of  May,  to  the  number  of  about  seventy- 
five  ;  I  was  there  too.  There  are  a  great  many  patients 
but  all  that  is  interesting  material  for  alienists 
and  not  for  psychologists.  One  patient,  a  mystic, 
preaches  that  the  Holy  Trinity  has  come  upon  earth 
in  the  form  of  the  metropolitan  of  Kiev,  loannikiy. 
*'A  limit  of  ten  years  has  been  given  us;  eight  have 
passed,  only  two  years  are  left.  If  we  do  not  want 
Russia  to  fall  into  ruins  like  Sodom,  all  Russia  must 
go  in  a  procession  with  the  Cross  to  Kiev,  as  Moscow 
went  to  Troitsa,  and  pray  there  to  the  divine  martyr 
in  the  noble  form  of  the  metropolitan  loannikiy." 
This  queer  fellow  is  convinced  that  the  doctors  in 
the  asylum  are  poisoning  him,  and  that  he  is  being 
saved  by  the  miraculous  intervention  of  Christ  in  the 
form  of  the  metropolitan.  He  is  continually  praying 
to  the  East  and  singing,  and,  addressing  himself  to 
God,  invariably  adds  the  words,  "in  the  noble  form 
of  the  metropolitan  loannikiy."  He  has  a  lovely 
expression  of  face.   .   .   . 

From  the  madhouse  I  returned  late  at  night  in  my 
troika.     Two-thirds    of    the    wav    I    had    to    drive 


330  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

through  the  forest  in  the  moonhght,  and  I  had  a 
wonderful  feeling  such  as  I  have  not  had  for  a  long 
time,  as  though  I  had  come  back  from  a  tryst.  I 
think  that  nearness  to  nature  and  idleness  are 
essential  elements  of  happiness;  without  them  it  is 
impossible.   .   .  . 

To  Madame  Avilov. 

Melihovo, 
July,  1894. 

I  have  so  many  visitors  that  I  cannot  answer  your 
last  letter.  I  want  to  write  at  length  but  am  pulled 
up  at  the  thought  that  any  minute  they  may  come 
in  and  hinder  me.  And  in  fact  while  I  write  the 
word  "hinder,"  a  girl  has  come  in  and  announced 
that  a  patient  has  arrived;  I  must  go.  .  .  .  I  have 
grown  to  detest  writing,  and  I  don't  know  what  to  do. 
I  would  gladly  take  up  medicine  and  would  accept 
any  sort  of  post,  but  I  no  longer  have  the  physical 
elasticity  for  it.  When  I  write  now  or  think  I  ought 
to  write  I  feel  as  much  disgust  as  though  I  were  eat- 
ing soup  from  which  I  had  just  removed  a  beetle — 
forgive  the  comparison.  What  I  hate  is  not  the  writ- 
ing itself,  but  the  literary  entourage  from  which  one 
cannot  escape,  and  which  one  takes  everywhere  as 
the  earth  takes  its  atmosphere.   .   .   . 

To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Melihovo, 
August  15,  1894. 

Our  trip  on  the  Volga  turned  out  rather  a  queer 
one  in  the  end.  Potapenko  and  I  went  to  Yaroslav 
to  take  a  steamer  from  there  to  Tsaritsvn,  then  to 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  331 

Kalatch,  from  there  by  the  Don  to  Taganrog.  The 
journey  from  Yaroslav  to  Nizhni  is  beautiful,  but 
I  had  seen  it  before.  Moreover,  it  was  very  hot  in 
the  cabin  and  the  wind  lashed  in  our  faces  on  deck. 
The  passengers  were  an  uneducated  set,  whose 
presence  was  irritating.  At  Nizhni  we  were  met  by 
N.,  Tolstoy's  friend.  The  heat,  the  dry  wind,  the 
noise  of  the  fair  and  the  conversation  of  N.  suddenly 
made  me  feel  so  suffocated,  so  ill  at  ease,  and  so  sick, 
that  I  took  my  portmanteau  and  ignominiously 
fled  to  the  railway  station.  .  .  .  Potapenko  fol- 
lowed me.  We  took  the  train  for  Moscow,  but  we 
were  ashamed  to  go  home  without  having  done  any- 
thing, and  we  decided  to  go  somewhere  if  it  had  to  be 
to  Lapland.  If  it  had  not  been  for  his  wife  our  choice 
would  have  fallen  on  Feodosia,  but  .  .  .  alas!  we 
have  a  wife  living  at  Feodosia.  We  thought  it  over, 
we  talked  it  over,  we  counted  over  our  money,  and 
came  to  the  Psyol  to  Suma,  which  you  know.  .  .  . 
Well,  the  Psyol  is  magnificent.  There  is  warmth, 
there  is  space,  an  immensity  of  water  and  of  greenery 
and  delightful  people.  We  spent  six  days  on  the 
Psyol,  ate  and  drank,  walked  and  did  nothing:  my 
ideal  of  happiness,  as  you  know,  is  idleness.  Now  I 
am  at  Melihovo  again.  There  is  a  cold  rain,  a  leaden 
sky,  mud. 

W  W  TT  TT  w  w 

It  sometimes  happens  that  one  passes  a  third-class 
refreshment  room  and  sees  a  cold  fish,  cooked  long 
before,  and  wonders  carelessly  who  wants  that  unap- 
petising fish.  And  yet  undoubtedly  that  fish  is 
wanted,  and  will  be  eaten,  and  there  are  people  who 
will  think  it  nice.     One  may  say  the  same  of  the 


332  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

works  of  N.  He  is  a  bourgeois  writer,  writing  for 
the  unsophisticated  pubhc  who  travel  third  class. 
For  that  public  Tolstoy  and  Turgenev  are  too 
luxurious,  too  aristocratic,  somewhat  alien  and  not 
easily  digested.  There  is  a  public  which  eats  salt 
beef  and  horse-radish  sauce  with  relish,  and  does  not 
care  for  artichokes  and  asparagus.  Put  yourself  at 
its  point  of  view,  imagine  the  grey,  dreary  courtyard, 
the  educated  ladies  who  look  like  cooks,  the  smell  of 
paraffin,  the  scantiness  of  interests  and  tasks — and 
you  will  understand  N.  and  his  readers.  He  is 
colourless ;  that  is  partly  because  the  life  he  describes 
lacks  colour.  He  is  false  because  bourgeois  writers 
cannot  help  being  false.  They  are  vulgar  writers 
perfected.  The  vulgarians  sin  together  with  their 
public,  while  the  bourgeois  are  hypocritical  with  them 
and  flatter  their  narrow  virtue. 

Melihovo, 

February  25,  1895. 

...  I  should  like  to  meet  a  philosopher  like 
Nietzsche  somewhere  in  a  train  or  a  steamer,  and  to 
spend  the  whole  night  talking  to  him.  I  consider 
his  philosophy  won't  last  long,  however.  It's  more 
showy  than  convincing.  .   .   . 

Melihovo, 
March  16,  1895. 

Instead  of  you,  heaven  has  sent  me  N.,  who  has 
come  to  see  me  with  E.  and  Z.,  two  young  duffers 
who  never  miss  a  single  word  but  induce  in  the  whole 
household  a  desperate  boredom.  N.  looks  flabby 
and  physically  slack ;  he  has  gone  off,  but  has  become 
warmer  and  more  good-natured;  he  must  be  going 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  335 

to  die.  When  my  mother  was  ordering  meat  from 
the  butcher,  she  said  he  must  let  us  have  better  meat, 
as  N.  was  staying  with  us  from  Petersburg. 

"What  N.?"  asked  the  butcher  in  surprise — "the 
one  who  writes  books?"  and  he  sent  us  excellent 
meat.  So  the  butcher  does  not  know  that  I  write 
books,  for  he  never  sends  anything  but  gristle  for  my 
benefit.   .   .   . 

Your  little  letter  about  physical  games  for  students 
will  do  good  if  only  you  will  go  on  insisting  on  the 
subject.  Games  are  absolutely  essential.  Playing 
games  is  good  for  health  and  beauty  and  liberalism, 
since  nothing  is  so  conducive  to  the  blending  of 
classes,  et  cetera,  as  public  games.  Games  would 
give  our  solitary  young  people  acquaintances;  young 
people  would  more  frequently  fall  in  love ;  but  games 
should  not  be  instituted  before  the  Russian  student 
ceases  to  be  hungry.  No  skating,  no  croquet,  can 
keep  the  student  cheerful  and  confident  on  an  empty 
stomach. 

Melihovo, 
March  23,  1895. 

I  told  you  that  Potapenko  was  a  man  very  full  of 
life,  but  you  did  not  believe  me.  In  the  entrails  of 
every  Little  Russian  lie  hidden  many  treasures.  I 
fancy  when  our  generation  grows  old,  Potapenko  will 
be  the  gayest  and  jolliest  old  man  of  us  all. 

By  all  means  I  will  be  married  if  you  wish  it.  But 
on  these  conditions:  everything  must  be  as  it  has 
been  hitherto — that  is,  she  must  live  in  Moscow  while 
I  live  in  the  country,  and  I  will  come  and  see  her. 
Happiness  continued  from  day  to  day,  from  morning 
to  morning,  I  cannot  stand.     When  every  day  I  am 


334  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

told  of  the  same  thing,  in  the  same  tone  of  voice,  I 
become  furious.  I  am  furious,  for  instance,  in  the 
society  of  S.,  because  he  is  very  much  Hke  a  woman 
("a  clever  and  responsive  woman")  and  because  in 
his  presence  the  idea  occurs  to  me  that  my  wife  might 
be  like  him.  I  promise  you  to  be  a  splendid  husband, 
but  give  me  a  wife  who,  like  the  moon,  won't  appear 
in  my  sky  every  day;  I  shan't  write  any  better  for 
being  married.   .   .   . 

Mamin-Sibiryak  is  a  very  nice  fellow  and  an  excel- 
lent writer.  His  last  novel  "Bread"  is  praised; 
Lyeskov  was  particularly  enthusiastic  about  it. 
There  are  undoubtedly  fine  things  in  his  work,  and 
in  his  more  successful  stories  the  peasants  are 
depicted  every  bit  as  well  as  in  "Master  and  Man." 

This  is  the  fourth  year  I  have  been  living  at 
Melihovo.  My  calves  have  turned  into  cows,  my 
copse  has  grown  at  least  a  yard  higher,  my  heirs  will 
make  a  capital  bargain  over  the  timber  and  will  call 
me  an  ass,  for  heirs  are  never  satisfied. 

Melihovo, 
March  30,  1895. 

.  .  .  We  have  spring  here  but  there  are  regular 
mountains  of  snow,  and  there  is  no  knowing  when 
it  will  thaw.  As  soon  as  the  sun  hides  behind  a 
cloud  there  begins  to  be  a  chill  breath  from  the  snow, 
and  it  is  horrible.  Masha  is  already  busy  in  the 
flower-beds  and  borders.  She  tires  herself  out  and 
is  constantly  cross,  so  there  is  no  need  for  her  to  read 
Madame  Smirnov's  article.  The  advice  given  is 
excellent;  the  young  ladies  will  read  it,  and  it  will 
be  their  salvation.  Only  one  point  is  not  clear: 
how  are  they  going  to  get  rid  of  the  apples  and  cab- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  335 

bages  if  the  estate  is  far  from  the  town,  and  of  what 
stuff  are  they  going  to  make  their  own  dresses  if  their 
rye  does  not  sell  at  all,  and  they  have  not  a  halfpenny? 
To  live  on  one's  land  by  the  labour  of  one's  own  hands 
and  the  sweat  of  one's  brow  is  only  possible  on  one 
condition ;  that  is,  if  one  works  oneself  like  a  peasant, 
without  regard  for  class  or  sex.  There  is  no  making 
use  of  slaves  nowadays,  one  must  take  the  scythe  and 
axe  oneself,  and  if  one  can't  do  that,  no  gardens  will 
help  one.  Even  the  smallest  success  in  farming 
is  only  gained  in  Russia  at  the  price  of  a  cruel 
struggle  with  nature,  and  wishing  is  not  enough 
for  the  struggle,  you  need  bodily  strength  and  grit, 
you  want  traditions — and  have  young  ladies  all  that? 
To  advise  young  ladies  to  take  up  farming  is  much 
the  same  as  to  advise  them  to  be  bears,  and  to  bend 
yokes.   .   .   . 

I  have  no  money,  but  I  live  in  the  country:  there 
are  no  restaurants  and  no  cabmen,  and  money  does 
not  seem  to  be  needed. 

Melihovo, 

April  13,  1895. 

I  am  sick  of  Sienkiewicz's  "The  Family  of  the 
Polonetskys."  It's  the  Polish  Easter  cake  with 
saffron.  Add  Potapenko  to  Paul  Bourget,  sprinkle 
with  Warsaw  eau-de-Cologne,  divide  in  two,  and  you 
get  Sienkiewicz.  "The  Polonetskys"  is  unmistak- 
ably inspired  by  Bourget's  "Cosmopolis,"  by  Rome 
and  by  marriage  (Sienkiewicz  has  lately  got  mar- 
ried). We  have  the  catacombs  and  a  queer  old 
professor  sighing  after  idealism,  and  Leo  XHL 
wdth  the  unearthly  face  among  the  saints,  and  the 
advice  to  return  to  the  prayer-book,  and  the  libel 
on  the  decadent  who  dies  of  morphinism  after  con- 


336  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

fessing  and  taking  the  sacrament — that  is,  after 
repenting  of  his  errors  in  the  name  of  the  Church. 
There  is  a  devihsh  lot  of  family  happiness  and  talk- 
ing about  love,  and  the  hero's  wife  is  so  faithful  to 
her  husband  and  so  subtly  comprehends  "with  her 
heart"  the  mysteries  of  God  and  life,  that  in  the 
end  one  feels  mawkish  and  uncomfortable  as  after 
a  slobbering  kiss.  Sienkiewicz  has  evidently  not 
read  Tolstoy,  and  does  not  know  Nietzsche,  he  talks 
about  hypnotism  like  a  shopman;  on  the  other  hand 
every  page  is  positively  sprinkled  with  Rubens, 
Borghesi,  Correggio,  Botticelli — and  that  is  done  to 
show  off  his  culture  to  the  bourgeois  reader  and  make 
a  long  nose  on  the  sly  at  materialism.  The  object 
of  the  novel  is  to  lull  the  bourgeoisie  to  sleep  in  its 
golden  dreams.  Be  faithful  to  your  wife,  pray  with 
her  over  the  prayer-book,  save  money,  love  sport, 
and  all  is  well  with  you  in  this  world  and  the  next. 
The  bourgeoisie  is  very  fond  of  so-called  practical 
types  and  novels  with  happy  endings,  since  they 
soothe  it  with  the  idea  that  one  can  both  accumulate 
capital  and  preserve  innocence,  be  a  beast  and  at  the 
same  time  be  happy.   .   .   . 

I  wish  you  every  sort  of  blessing.  I  congratulate 
you  on  the  peace  between  Japan  and  China,  and  hope 
we  may  quickly  obtain  a  Feodosia  free  from  ice  on 
the  East  Coast,  and  may  make  a  railway  to  it. 

The  peasant  woman  had  not  troubles  enough  so 
she  bought  a  pig.  And  I  fancy  we  are  saving  up  a 
lot  of  trouble  for  ourselves  with  this  ice-free  port.* 
It  will  cost  us  dearer  than  if  we  were  to  take  it  into 
our  heads  to  wage  war  on  all  Japan.  However,  fu- 
tura  sunt  in  manibus  deorum. 

*  Prophetic  of  Port  Arthur  and  the  Japanese  War. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  337 

Meuhovo, 
October  21,  1895. 

Thanks  for  your  letter,  for  your  warm  words  and 
your  invitation.      I  will  come,  but  most  likely  not  be- 
fore the  end  of  November,  as  I  have  a  devilish  lot  to 
do.     First  in  the  spring  I  am  going  to  build  a  new 
school  in  the  village  where  I  am  school  warden;  be- 
fore beginning  I  have  to  make  a  plan  and  calculations, 
and  to  drive  off  here  and  there,  and  so  on.     Secondly 
— can  you  imagine  it — I  am  writing  a  play  which  I 
shall  probably  not  finish  before  the  end  of  November. 
I  am  writing  it  not  without  pleasure,  though  I  swear 
fearfully   at   the  conventions   of  the  stage.      It's  a 
comedy,  there  are  three  women's  parts,  six  men's, 
four  acts,  landscapes  (view  over  a  lake)  ;  a  great  deal 
of  conversation  about  literature,  little  action,  tons  of 
love.*      I  read  of  Ozerova's  failure  and  was  sorry, 
for  nothing  is  more  painful  than  failing.   ...      I 
have  read  of  the  success  of  the  "Powers  of  Darkness" 
in  your  theatre.   .   .   .     When  I  was  at  Tolstoy's  in 
August,  he  told  me,  as  he  was  wiping  his  hands  after 
washing,  that  he  wouldn't  alter  his  play.     And  now, 
remembering  that,  I  fancy  that  he  knew  even  then 
that  his  play  would  be  passed  by  the  censor  in  toto. 
I  spent  two  days  and  a  night  with  him.     He  made 
a  delightful  impression,  I  felt  as  much  at  ease  as 
though  I  were  at  home,  and  our  talks  were  easy.   .   .   . 

Moscow, 
October  26,  1895. 

Tolstoy's  daughters  are  very  nice.  They  adore 
their  father  and  have  a  fanatical  faith  in  him  and 
that  means  that  Tolstoy  really  is  a  great  moral  force, 

*  "The  Seagull." 


338  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

for  if  he  were  insincere  and  not  irreproachable  his 
daughters  would  be  the  first  to  take  up  a  sceptical  at- 
titude to  him,  for  daughters  are  like  sparrows:  you 
don't  catch  them  with  empty  chaff.  ...  A  man 
can  deceive  his  fiancee  or  his  mistress  as  much  as 
he  likes,  and,  in  the  eyes  of  a  woman  he  loves,  an  ass 
may  pass  for  a  philosopher;  but  a  daughter  is  a  dif- 
ferent matter.   .   .  . 

Melihovo, 
November  21,  1895. 

Well,  I  have  finished  with  the  play.  I  began  it 
forte  and  ended  it  pianissimo — contrary  to  all  the 
rules  of  dramatic  art.  It  has  turned  into  a  novel. 
I  am  rather  dissatisfied  than  satisfied  with  it,  and 
reading  over  my  new-born  play,  I  am  more  con- 
vinced than  ever  that  I  am  not  a  dramatist.  The 
acts  are  veiy  short.  There  are  four  of  them. 
Though  it  is  so  far  only  the  skeleton  of  a  play,  a 
plan  which  will  be  altered  a  million  times  before  the 
coming  season,  I  have  ordered  two  copies  to  be  typed 
and  will  send  you  one,  only  don't  let  anyone  read 

J.L*      •      •      • 

To  HIS  Brother  Mihail. 

Petersburg, 
October  15,  1896. 

.  .  .  My  "Seagull"  comes  on  on  the  seventeenth 
of  October.  Madame  Kommissarzhevsky  acts  amaz- 
ingly. There  is  no  news.  I  am  alive  and  well.  I 
shall  be  at  Melihovo  about  the  twenty-fifth  or  towards 
the  end  of  October,  On  the  twenty-ninth  is  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Zemstvo,  at  which  I  must  be  present  as 
there  will  be  a  discussion  about  roads.   .   .   . 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  339 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Petersburg, 
October  18,  1896. 

I  am  off  to  Melihovo.  All  good  wishes.  .  .  . 
Stop  the  printing  of  the  plays.  I  shall  never  forget 
yesterday  evening,  but  still  I  slept  well,  and  am  set- 
ting off  in  a  very  tolerable  good  humour. 

Write  to  me.  ...  I  have  received  your  letter. 
I  am  not  going  to  produce  the  play  in  Moscow.  I 
shall  never  either  write  plays  or  have  them  acted. 


To  HIS  Sister. 

Petersburg, 
October  18,  1896. 

I  am  setting  off  to  Melihovo.  I  shall  be  there  to- 
morrow between  one  or  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
Yesterday's  adventure  did  not  astonish  or  greatly  dis- 
appoint me,  for  I  was  prepared  for  it  by  the  rehearsals 
— and  I  don't  feel  particularly  bad. 

When  you  come  to  Melihovo  bring  Lika  with  you. 


To  HIS  Brother  Mihail. 

Petersburg, 
October  18,  1896. 

The  play  has  fallen  flat,  and  come  down  with  a 
crash.  There  was  an  oppressive  strained  feeling  of 
disgrace  and  bewilderment  in  the  theatre.  The 
actors  played  abominably  stupidly.  The  moral  of  it 
is,  one  ought  not  to  write  plays. 


340  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Melihovo, 
October  22,  1896. 

In  your  last  letter  (of  October  18)  you  three  times 
call  me  womanish,  and  say  that  I  was  in  a  funk.  Why 
this  libel?  After  the  performance  I  had  supper  at 
Romanov's.  On  my  word  of  honour.  Then  I  went 
to  bed,  slept  soundly,  and  next  day  went  home  with- 
out uttering  a  sound  of  complaint.  If  I  had  been 
in  a  funk  I  should  have  run  from  editor  to  editor  and 
actor  to  actor,  should  have  nervouslv  entreated  them 
to  be  considerate,  should  nervously  have  inserted 
useless  corrections  and  should  have  spent  two  or 
three  weeks  in  Petersburg  fussing  over  my  "Seagull," 
in  excitement,  in  a  cold  perspiration,  in  lamenta- 
tion. .  .  .  When  you  were  with  me  the  night  after 
the  performance  you  told  me  yourself  that  it  would 
be  the  best  thing  for  me  to  go  away;  and  next  morn- 
ing I  got  a  letter  from  you  to  say  good-bye.  How 
did  I  show  funk?  I  acted  as  coldly  and  reason- 
ably as  a  man  who  has  made  an  offer,  received  a  re- 
fusal, and  has  nothing  left  but  to  go.  Yes,  my  vanity 
was  stung,  but  you  know  it  was  not  a  bolt  from 
the  blue;  I  was  expecting  a  failure,  and  was  pre- 
pared for  it,  as  I  warned  you  with  perfect  sincerity 
beforehand. 

When  I  got  home  I  took  a  dose  of  castor  oil,  and 
had  a  cold  bath,  and  now  I  am  ready  to  write  another 
play.  I  no  longer  feel  exhausted  and  irritable,  and 
am  not  afraid  that  Davydov  and  Jean  will  come  to 
me  and  talk  about  the  play.  I  agree  with  your  cor- 
rections,  and  a  thousand  thanks  for  them.      Only 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  341 

please  don't  regret  that  you  were  not  at  the  rehearsals. 
You  know  there  was  in  reality  only  one  rehearsal,  at 
which  one  could  make  out  nothing.  One  could  not 
see  the  play  at  all  through  the  loathsome  acting. 

I  have  got  a  telegram  from  Potapenko — "A  co- 
lossal success."  I  have  had  a  letter  from  Mile. 
Veselitsky  (Mikulitch)  whom  I  don't  know.  She 
expresses  her  sympathy  in  a  tone  as  if  one  of  my 
family  were  dead.  It's  really  quite  inappropriate; 
that's  all  nonsense,  though. 

My  sister  is  delighted  with  you  and  Anna  Ivanovna, 
and  I  am  inexpressibly  glad  of  it,  for  I  love  your 
family  like  my  own.  She  hastened  home  from 
Petersburg,  possibly  imagining  that  I  would  hang 
myself.   .   .   . 


To  E.  M.  S. 

Melihovo, 
November,  1896. 

If,  0  honoured  "One  of  the  Audience,"  you  are 
writing  of  the  first  performance,  then  allow — oh, 
allow  me  to  doubt  your  sincerity.  You  hasten  to 
pour  healing  balsam  on  the  author's  wounds,  sup- 
posing that,  under  the  circumstances,  that  is  more 
necessary  and  better  than  sincerity;  you  are  kind, 
very  kind,  and  it  does  credit  to  your  heart.  At  the 
first  performance  I  did  not  see  all,  but  what  I  did  see 
was  dingy,  grey,  dismal  and  wooden.  I  did  not  dis- 
tribute the  parts  and  was  not  given  new  scenery. 
There  were  only  two  rehearsals,  the  actors  did  not 
know  their  parts — and  the  result  was  a  general 
panic  and  utter  depression;  even  Madame  Kom- 
missarzhevsky's  acting  was  not  up  to  much,  though 


342  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

at  one  of  the  rehearsals  she  acted  marvellously,  so 
that  people  sitting  in  the  stalls  wept  with  bowed 
heads. 

In  any  case  I  am  grateful  and  very,  very  much 
touched.  All  my  plays  are  being  printed,  and  as 
soon  as  they  are  ready  I  shall  send  you  a  copy.  .   .  . 


To  A.  F.  KoNi. 

Melihovo, 
November  11,  18%. 

You  cannot  imagine  how  your  letter  rejoiced  me. 
I  saw  from  the  front  only  the  two  first  acts  of  my 
play.  Afterwards  I  sat  behind  the  scenes  and  felt 
the  whole  time  that  "The  Seagull"  was  a  failure. 
After  the  performance  that  night  and  next  day,  I 
was  assured  that  I  had  hatched  out  nothing  but 
idiots,  that  my  play  was  clumsy  from  the  stage  point 
of  view,  that  it  was  not  clever,  that  it  was  unin- 
telligible, even  senseless,  and  so  on  and  so  on.  You 
can  imagine  my  position — it  was  a  collapse  such  as 
I  had  never  dreamed  of!  I  felt  ashamed  and  vexed, 
and  I  went  away  from  Petersburg  full  of  doubts  of 
all  sorts.  I  thought  that  if  I  had  written  and  put 
on  the  stage  a  play  so  obviously  brimming  over  with 
monstrous  defects,  I  had  lost  all  instinct  and  that, 
therefore,  my  machinery  must  have  gone  wrong  for 
good.  After  I  had  reached  home,  they  wrote  to  me 
from  Petersburg  that  the  second  and  third  perform- 
ances were  a  success;  several  letters,  some  signed, 
some  anonymous,  came  praising  the  play  and  abusing 
the  critics.  I  read  them  with  pleasure,  but  still  I 
felt  vexed  and  ashamed,  and  the  idea  forced  itself 
upon  me  that  if  kind-hearted  people  thought  it  was 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  343 

necessary  to  comfort  me,  it  meant  that  I  was  in  a 
bad  way.  But  your  letter  has  acted  upon  me  in  a 
most  definite  way.  I  have  known  you  a  long  time,  I 
have  a  deep  respect  for  you,  and  I  believe  in  you  more 
than  in  all  the  critics  taken  together — you  felt  that 
when  you  wrote  your  letter,  and  that  is  why  it  is  so 
excellent  and  convincing.  My  mind  is  at  rest  now, 
and  I  can  think  of  the  play  and  the  performance  with- 
out loathing.  Kommissarzhevskaia  is  a  wonderful 
actress.  At  one  of  the  rehearsals  many  people 
were  moved  to  tears  as  they  looked  at  her,  and  said 
that  she  was  the  first  actress  in  Russia  to-day;  but 
at  the  first  performance  she  was  affected  by  the  gen- 
eral attitude  of  hostility  to  my  "Seagull,"  and  was, 
as  it  were,  intimidated  by  it  and  lost  her  voice.  Our 
press  takes  a  cold  tone  to  her  that  doesn't  do 
justice  to  her  merits,  and  I  am  sorry  for  her.  Allow 
me  to  thank  you  with  all  my  heart  for  your  letter. 
Believe  me,  I  value  the  feelings  that  prompted  you 
to  write  it  far  more  than  I  can  express  in  words,  and 
the  sympathy  you  call  "unnecessary"  at  the  end 
of  your  letter  I  shall  never  never  forget,  whatever 
happens. 


To  V.  I.  Nemirovitch-Dantchenko. 

Melihovo, 
November  26,  1896. 

Dear  friend, 

I  am  answering  the  chief  substance  of  your 
letter — the  question  why  we  so  rarely  talk  of  serious 
subjects.  When  people  are  silent,  it  is  because  they 
have  nothing  to  talk  about  or  because  they  are  ill  at 
ease.     What  is  there  to  talk  about?     We  have  no 


344  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

politics,  we  have  neither  public  life  nor  club  life, 
nor  even  a  life  of  the  streets;  our  civic  existence  is 
poor,  monotonous,  burdensome,  and  uninteresting — 
and  to  talk  is  as  boring  as  corresponding  with  L. 
You  say  that  we  are  literary  men,  and  that  of  itself 
makes  our  life  a  rich  one.  Is  that  so?  We  are 
stuck  in  our  profession  up  to  our  ears,  it  has  gradually 
isolated  us  from  the  external  world,  and  the  upshot 
of  it  is  that  we  have  little  free  time,  little  money, 
few  books,  we  read  little  and  reluctantly,  we  hear  lit- 
tle, we  rarely  go  anywhere.  Should  we  talk  about 
literature?  .  .  .  But  we  have  talked  about  it 
already.  Every  year  it's  the  same  thing  again  and 
again,  and  all  we  usually  say  about  literature  may 
be  reduced  to  discussing  who  write  better,  and  who 
write  worse.  Conversations  upon  wider  and  more 
general  topics  never  catch  on,  because  when  you  have 
tundras  and  Esquimaux  all  round  you,  general  ideas, 
being  so  inappropriate  to  the  reality,  quickly  lose 
shape  and  slip  away  like  thoughts  of  eternal  bliss. 
Should  we  talk  of  personal  life?  Yes,  that  may 
sometimes  be  interesting  and  we  might  perhaps  talk 
about  it;  but  there  again  we  are  constrained,  we  are 
reserved  and  insincere:  we  are  restrained  by  an 
instinct  of  self-preservation  and  we  are  afraid.  We 
are  afraid  of  being  overheard  by  some  uncultured 
Esquimaux  who  does  not  like  us,  and  whom  we  don't 
like  either.  I  personally  am  afraid  that  my  acquaint- 
ance, N.,  whose  cleverness  attracts  us,  will  hold  forth 
with  raised  finger,  in  every  railway  carriage  and 
every  house  about  me,  settling  the  question  why  I 
became  so  intimate  with  X.  while  I  was  beloved  by 
Z.  I  am  afraid  of  our  morals,  I  am  afraid  of  our 
ladies.   ...     In    short,    for    our    silence,    for   the 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  345 

frivolity  and  dulness  of  our  conversations,  don't 
blame  yourself  or  me,  blame  what  the  critics  call 
"the  age,"  blame  the  climate,  the  vast  distances, 
what  you  will,  and  let  circumstances  go  on  their 
own  fateful,  relentless  course,  hoping  for  a  better 
future. 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Melihovo, 
January  11,  1897. 

We  are  having  a  census.  They  have  served  out  to 
the  numerators  detestable  inkpots,  detestable  clumsy 
badges  like  the  labels  of  a  brewery,  and  portfolios 
into  which  the  census  forms  will  not  fit — giving  the 
effect  of  a  sword  that  won't  go  into  its  sheath.  It 
is  a  disgrace.  From  early  morning  I  go  from  hut  to 
hut,  and  knock  my  head  in  the  low  doorways  which 
I  can't  get  used  to,  and  as  ill-luck  will  have  it  my 
head  aches  hellishly;  I  have  migraine  and  influenza. 
In  one  hut  a  little  girl  of  nine  years  old,  boarded 
out  from  the  foundling  hospital,  wept  bitterly  because 
all  the  other  little  girls  in  the  hut  were  Mihailovnas 
while  she  was  called  Lvovna  after  her  godfather. 
I  said  call  yourself  Mihailovna.  They  were  all 
highly  delighted,  and  began  thanking  me.  That's 
what's  called  making  friends  with  the  Mammon  of 
Unrighteousness. 

The  "Journal  of  Surgery"  has  been  sanctioned  by 
the  Censor.  We  are  beginning  to  bring  it  out.  Be 
so  good  as  to  do  us  a  service — have  the  enclosed 
advertisement  printed  on  your  front  page  and  charge 
it  to  my  account.  The  journal  will  be  a  very  good 
one,  and  this  advertisement  can  lead  to  nothing  but 


346  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

unmistakable  and  solid  benefit.     It's  a  great  benefit, 
you  know,  to  cut  off  people's  legs. 

While  we  are  on  medical  topics — a  remedy  for 
cancer  has  been  found.  For  almost  a  year  past, 
thanks  to  a  Russian  doctor  Denisenko,  they  have  been 
trying  the  juice  of  the  celandine,  and  one  reads  of 
astonishing  results.  Cancer  is  a  terrible  unbearable 
disease,  the  death  from  it  is  agonizing;  you  can  im- 
agine how  pleasant  it  is  for  a  man  initiated  into  the 
secrets  of  i^sculapius  to  read  of  such  results.   .   .   . 

Moscow, 
February  8,  1897. 

The  census  is  over.  I  was  pretty  sick  of  the  busi- 
ness, as  I  had  both  to  enumerate  and  to  write  till  my 
fingers  ached,  and  to  give  lectures  to  fifteen  numer- 
ators. The  numerators  worked  excellently,  with  a 
pedantic  exactitude  almost  absurd.  On  the  other 
hand  the  Zemsky  Natchalniks,  to  whom  the  census 
was  entrusted  in  the  districts,  behaved  disgustingly. 
They  did  nothing,  understood  little,  and  at  the  most 
difficult  moments  used  to  report  themselves  sick. 
The  best  of  them  turned  out  to  be  a  man  who  drinks 
and  draws  the  long  bow  a  la  Hlestakov  * — but  was  all 
the  same  a  character,  if  only  from  the  point  of  view  of 
comedy,  while  the  others  were  colourless  beyond 
words,  and  it  was  annoying  beyond  words  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  them. 

I  am  in  Moscow  at  the  Great  Moscow  Hotel.  I 
am  staying  a  short  time,  ten  days,  and  then  going 
home.  The  whole  of  Lent  and  the  whole  of  April 
after  it,  I  shall  have  to  be  busy  again  with  carpenters 

*  A  character  in  Gogol's  "Inspector  General." — Translator's 
Note. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  347 

and  so  on.  I  am  building  a  school  again.  A  depu- 
tation came  to  me  from  the  peasants  begging  me  for 
it,  and  I  had  not  the  courage  to  refuse.  The  Zem- 
stvo  is  giving  a  thousand  roubles,  the  peasants  have 
collected  three  hundred,  and  that  is  all,  while  the 
school  will  not  cost  less  than  three  thousand.  So 
again  I  shall  have  all  the  summer  to  be  thinking  about 
money,  and  scraping  it  together  here  and  there.  Al- 
together life  in  the  country  is  full  of  work  and 
care.   ... 

The  police  have  made  a  raid  upon  Tchertkov,  the 
well-known  Tolstoyan,  have  carried  off  all  that  the 
Tolstoyans  had  collected  relating  to  the  Duhobors 
and  sectarians — and  so  all  at  once  as  though  by  magic 
all  evidence  against  Pobyedonostsev  and  his  angels 
has  vanished.  Goremykin  called  upon  Tchertkov's 
mother  and  said:  "Your  son  must  make  the  choice — 
either  the  Baltic  Province  where  Prince  Hilkov  is  al- 
ready living  in  exile,  or  a  foreign  country."  Tchert- 
kov has  chosen  London. 

He  is  setting  off  on  the  thirteenth  of  February.  L. 
N.  Tolstoy  has  gone  to  Petersburg  to  see  him  off; 
and  yesterday  they  sent  his  winter  overcoat  after  him. 
A  great  many  are  going  to  see  him  off,  even  Sytin, 
and  I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot  do  the  same.  I  don't 
cherish  tender  sentiments  for  Tchertkov,  but  the  way 
he  has  been  treated  fills  me  with  intense,  intense  in- 
dignation.  .   .   . 

Moscow, 
April  1,  1897. 

The  doctors  have  diagnosed  tuberculosis  in  the 
upper  part  of  the  lungs,  and  have  ordered  me  to 
change  my  manner  of  life.  I  understand  their 
diagnosis  but  I  don't  understand  their  prescription, 


348  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

because  it  is  almost  impossible.  They  tell  me  I  must 
live  in  the  country,  but  you  know  living  permanently 
in  the  country  involves  continual  worry  with  peasants, 
with  animals,  with  elementary  forces  of  all  kinds,  and 
to  escape  from  worries  and  anxieties  in  the  country 
is  as  difficult  as  to  escape  burns  in  hell.  But  still  I 
will  try  to  change  my  life  as  far  as  possible,  and  have 
already,  through  Masha,  announced  that  I  shall  give 
up  medical  practice  in  the  country.  This  will  be  at 
the  same  time  a  great  relief  and  a  great  deprivation 
to  me.  I  shall  drop  all  public  duties  in  the  district, 
shall  buy  a  dressing-gown,  bask  in  the  sun,  and  eat  a 
great  deal.  They  tell  me  to  eat  six  times  a  day  and 
are  indignant  with  me  for  eating,  as  they  think,  very 
little.  I  am  forbidden  to  talk  much,  to  swim,  and  so 
on,  and  so  on. 

Except  my  lungs,  all  my  organs  were  found  to  be 
healthy.  Hitherto  I  fancied  I  drank  just  so  much 
as  not  to  do  harm;  now  it  turns  out  on  investigation 
that  I  was  drinking  less  than  I  was  entitled  to.  What 
a  pity! 

The  author  of  "Ward  No.  6"  has  been  moved  from 
Ward  No.  16  to  Ward  No.  14.  There  is  plenty  of 
room  here,  two  windows,  lighting  a  la  Potapenko, 
three  tables.  There  is  very  little  haemorrhage. 
After  the  evening  when  Tolstoy  was  here  (we  talked 
for  a  long  time)  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  I  had 
violent  haemorrhage  again. 

Melihovo  is  a  healthy  place;  it  stands  exactly  on 
a  watershed,  on  high  ground,  so  that  there  is  never 
fever  or  diphtheria  in  it.  They  have  decided,  after 
general  consultation,  that  I  am  not  to  go  away  any- 
where but  to  go  on  living  at  Melihovo.  I  must  only 
arrange  the  house  somewhat  more  comfortably.   .   .   . 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  349 


Moscow, 
April  7,  1897. 

.  .  .  You  write  that  my  ideal  is  laziness.  No,  it  is 
not  laziness.  I  despise  laziness  as  I  despise  weak- 
ness and  lack  of  mental  and  moral  energy.  I  was  not 
talking  of  laziness  but  of  leisure,  and  I  did  not  say 
leisure  was  an  ideal  but  only  one  of  the  essential  con- 
ditions of  personal  happiness. 

If  the  experiments  with  Koch's  new  serum  give 
favourable  results,  I  shall  go  of  course  to  Berlin. 
Feeding  is  absolutely  no  use  to  me.  Here  for  the 
last  fortnight  they  have  been  feeding  me  zealously,, 
but  it's  no  use,  I  have  not  gained  weight. 

I  ought  to  get  married.  Perhaps  a  cross  wife 
would  cut  down  the  number  of  my  visitors  by  at 
least  a  half.  Yesterday  they  were  coming  all  day 
long,  it  was  simply  awful.  They  came  two  at  a  time 
— and  each  one  begs  me  not  to  speak  and  at  the  same 
time  asks  m-e  questions.   .   .   . 


To  A.  I.  Ertel. 

Melihovo, 
April  17,  1897. 

Dear  Friend  Alexandr  Ivanovitch, 

I  am  now  at  home.  For  a  fortnight  before- 
Easter  I  was  lying  in  Ostroumov's  clinic  and  was 
spitting  blood.  The  doctor  diagnosed  tuberculosis 
in  the  lungs.  I  feel  splendid,  nothing  aches,  nothing 
is  uneasy  inside,  but  the  doctors  have  forbidden  me 
vinum,  movement,  and  conversation,  they  have  or- 
dered me  to  eat  a  great  deal,  and  forbidden  me  ta 
practise — and  I  feel  as  it  were  dreary. 


350  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

I  hear  nothing  about  the  People's  Theatre.  At  the 
congress  it  was  spoken  of  apathetically,  without  inter- 
est, and  the  circle  that  had  undertaken  to  write  its 
constitution  and  set  to  work  have  evidently  cooled  off 
a  little.  It  is  due  to  the  spring,  I  suppose.  The  only 
one  of  the  circle  I  saw  was  Goltsev,  and  I  had  not  time 
to  talk  to  him  about  the  theatre. 

There  is  nothing  new.  A  dead  calm  in  literature. 
In  the  editor's  offices  they  are  drinking  tea  and  cheap 
wine,  drinking  it  without  relish  as  they  walk  about, 
evidently  from  having  nothing  to  do.  Tolstoy  is 
writing  a  little  book  about  Art.  He  came  to  see  me 
in  the  clinic,  and  said  that  he  had  flung  aside  his  novel 
"Resurrection"  as  he  did  not  like  it,  and  was  writing 
only  about  Art,  and  had  read  sixty  books  about  Art. 
His  idea  is  not  a  new  one;  all  intelligent  old  men  in 
all  the  ages  have  sung  the  same  tune  in  different  keys. 
Old  men  have  always  been  prone  to  see  the  end  of  the 
world,  and  have  always  declared  that  morality  was  de- 
generating to  the  uttermost  point,  that  Art  was  grow- 
ing shallow  and  wearing  thin,  that  people  were  grow- 
ing feebler,  and  so  on,  and  so  on. 

Lvov  Nikolaevitch  wants  to  persuade  us  in  his  little 
book  that  at  the  present  time  Art  has  entered  upon  its 
final  phase,  that  it  is  in  a  blind  alley,  from  which  it 
has  no  outlet  (except  retreat) . 

I  am  doing  nothing,  I  feed  the  sparrows  with  hemp- 
seed  and  prune  a  rose-tree  a  day.  After  my  pruning, 
the  roses  flower  magnificently.  I  am  not  looking 
after  the  farming. 

Keep  well,  dear  Alexandr  Ivanovitch,  thank  you  for 
your  letter  and  friendly  sympathy.  Write  to  me  for 
the  sake  of  my  infirmity,  and  don't  blame  me  too  much 
for  my  carelessness  in  correspondence. 


ii 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  351 

In  future  I  am  going  to  try  and  answer  your  letters 
as  soon  as  I  have  read  them. 
Warmest  greetings. 


To    SUVORIN. 

Meliiiovo, 

July  12,  1897. 

.  .  I  am  reading  Maeterlinck,  I  have  read  his 
Les  Aveugles,"  "LTntrus,"  and  am  reading 
"Aglavaine  et  Selysette."  They  are  all  strange 
wonderful  things,  but  they  make  an  immense  impres- 
sion, and  if  I  had  a  theatre  I  should  certainly  stage 
"Les  Aveugles."  There  is,  by  the  way,  a  magnifi- 
cent scenic  effect  in  it,  with  the  sea  and  a  lighthouse 
in  the  distance.  The  public  is  semi-idiotic,  but  one 
might  avoid  the  play's  failing  by  writing  the  contents 
of  the  play — in  brief,  of  course — on  the  programme, 
saying  the  play  is  the  work  of  Maeterlinck,  a  Belgian 
author  and  decadent,  and  that  what  happens  in  it 
is  that  an  old  man,  who  leads  about  some  blind 
men,  has  died  in  silence  and  that  the  blind  men,  not 
knowing  this,  are  sitting  and  waiting  for  his  re- 
turn.  .   ,   . 


To  Madame  Avilov. 

Nice, 
October  6,  1897. 

...  You  complain  that  my  heroes  are  gloomy 
— alas!  that's  not  my  fault.  This  happens  apart 
from  my  will,  and  when  I  write  it  does  not  seem  to  me 
that  I  am  writing  gloomily;  in  any  case,  as  I  work  I 
am  always  in  excellent  spirits.     It  has  been  observed 


352  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

that  gloomy,  melancholy  people  always  write  cheer- 
fully, while  those  who  enjoy  life  put  their  depression 
into  their  writings.  And  I  am  a  man  who  enjoys  life ; 
the  first  thirty  years  of  my  life  I  have  lived  as  they  say 
in  pleasure  and  content.   .   .   . 

To  F.  D.  Batyushkov. 

Nice, 
December  15,  1897. 

...  In  one  of  your  letters  you  expressed  a  desire 
that  I  should  send  you  an  international  story,  taking 
for  my  subject  something  from  the  life  here.  Such 
a  story  I  can  write  only  in  Russia  from  reminiscences. 
I  can  only  write  from  reminiscences,  and  I  have  never 
written  directly  from  Nature.  I  have  let  my  memory 
sift  the  subject,  so  that  only  what  is  important  or 
typical  is  left  in  it  as  in  a  filter.   .   .   . 

To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Nice, 
January  4,  1898. 

.  .  .  Judging  from  the  extract  printed  in  Novoye 
Vremya,  Tolstoy's  article  on  Art  does  not  seem  in- 
teresting. All  that  is  old.  He  says  about  Art  that 
it  is  decrepit,  that  it  has  got  into  a  blind  alley,  that 
it  is  not  what  it  ought  to  be,  and  so  on,  and  so  on. 
That's  just  like  saying  the  desire  to  eat  and  drink 
has  grown  old,  has  outlived  its  day,  and  is  not  what 
it  ought  to  be.  Of  course  hunger  is  an  old  story,  in 
the  desire  to  eat  we  have  got  into  a  blind  alley,  but 
still  eating  is  necessary,  and  we  shall  go  on  eating 
however  the  philosophers  and  irate  old  men  moral- 

JoC •       •      •       •  ' 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  353 

To  F.  D.  Batyushkov. 

Nice, 
January  28,  1898. 

.  .  .  We  talk  of  nothing  here  but  Zola  and  Drey- 
fus. The  immense  majority  of  educated  people  are 
on  Zola's  side  and  believe  that  Dreyfus  is  innocent. 
Zola  has  gained  immensely  in  public  esteem;  his  let- 
ters of  protest  are  like  a  breath  of  fresh  air,  and  every 
Frenchman  has  felt  that,  thank  God!  there  is  still 
justice  in  the  world,  and  that  if  an  innocent  man  is 
condemned  there  is  still  someone  to  champion  him. 
The  French  papers  are  extremely  interesting  while 
the  Russian  are  worthless.  Novoye  Vremya  is  simply 
loathsome.   .   .   . 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Nice, 
/  February  6,  1898. 

.  .  .  You  write  that  you  are  annoyed  with  Zola, 
and  here  everyone  has  a  feeling  as  though  a  new, 
better  Zola  had  arisen.  In  his  trial  he  has  been 
cleansed  as  though  in  turpentine  from  grease-spots, 
and  now  shines  before  the  French  in  his  true  bril- 
liance. There  is  a  purity  and  moral  elevation  that 
was  not  suspected  in  him.  You  should  follow  the 
whole  scandal  from  the  very  beginning.  The  deg- 
radation of  Dreyfus,  whether  it  was  just  or  not,  made 
on  all  (you  were  of  the  number  I  remember)  a  pain- 
ful and  depressing  impression.  It  was  noticed  that 
at  the  time  of  the  sentence  Dreyfus  behaved  like  a 
decent  well-disciplined  officer,  while  those  present  at 
the  sentence,  the  journalists  for  instance,  shouted  at 


354  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

him,  "Hold  your  tongue,  Judas," — that  is,  behaved 
badly  and  indecently.  Everyone  came  back  from 
the  sentence  dissatisfied  and  with  a  troubled  con- 
science. Dreyfus'  counsel  Demange,  an  honest  man, 
who  even  during  the  preliminary  stages  of  the  trial 
felt  that  something  shifty  was  being  done  behind  the 
scenes,  was  particularly  dissatisfied — and  then  the 
experts  who,  to  convince  themselves  that  they  had 
not  made  a  mistake,  kept  talking  of  nothing  but 
Dreyfus,  of  his  being  guilty,  and  kept  wandering  all 
over  Paris!    .   .   . 

Of  the  experts  one  turned  out  to  be  mad,  the  author 
of  a  monstrously  absurd  project;  two  were  eccentric 
creatures. 

People  could  not  help  talking  of  the  Intelligence 
Department  at  the  War  Office,  that  military  consistory 
which  is  employed  in  hunting  for  spies  and  reading 
other  people's  letters;  it  began  to  be  said  that  the 
head  of  that  Department,  Sandhen,  was  suffering 
from  progressive  paralysis;  Paty  de  Clam  has  shown 
himself  to  be  something  after  the  style  of  Tausch  of 
Berlin;  Picquart  suddenly  took  his  departure  mys- 
teriously, causing  a  lot  of  talk.  All  at  once  a  series 
of  gross  judicial  blunders  came  to  light.  By  degrees 
people  became  convinced  that  Dreyfus  had  been 
condemned  on  the  strength  of  a  secret  document, 
which  had  been  shown  neither  to  the  accused  man 
nor  his  defending  counsel,  and  decent  law-abiding 
people  saw  in  this  a  fundamental  breach  of  justice. 
If  the  latter  were  the  work  not  simply  of  Wilhelm, 
but  of  the  centre  of  the  solar  system,  it  ought  to  have 
been  shown  to  Demange.  All  sorts  of  guesses  were 
made  as  to  the  contents  of  this  letter,  the  most  im- 
possible stories  circulated.     Dreyfus  was  an  officer. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  355 

the  military  were  suspect;  Dreyfus  was  a  Jew,  the 
Jews  were  suspect.  People  began  talking  about  mil- 
itarism, about  the  Jews.  Such  utterly  disreputable 
people  as  Drumont  held  up  their  heads;  little  by 
little  they  stirred  up  a  regular  pother  on  a  substratum 
of  anti-semitism,  on  a  substratum  that  smelt  of  the 
shambles.  When  something  is  wrong  with  us  we 
look  for  the  causes  outside  ourselves,  and  readily  find 
them.  "It's  the  Frenchman's  nastiness,  it's  the 
Jews',  it's  Wilhelm's."  Capital,  brimstone,  the  free- 
masons, the  Syndicate,  the  Jesuits — they  are  all 
bogeys,  but  how  they  relieve  our  uneasiness !  They 
are  of  course  a  bad  sign.  Since  the  French  have 
begun  talking  about  the  Jews,  about  the  Syndicate, 
it  shows  they  are  feeling  uncomfortable,  that  there 
is  a  worm  gnawing  at  them,  that  they  feel  the  need 
of  these  bogeys  to  soothe  their  over-excited  con- 
science. 

Then  this  Esterhazy,  a  duellist,  in  the  style  of 
Turgenev's  duellists,  an  insolent  ruffian,  who  had 
long  been  an  object  of  suspicion,  and  was  not  re- 
spected by  his  comrades;  the  striking  resemblance  of 
his  handwriting  with  that  of  the  bordereau^  the 
Uhlan's  letters,  his  threats  which  for  some  reason  he 
does  not  carry  out ;  finally  the  judgment,  utterly  mys- 
terious, strangely  deciding  that  the  bordereau  was 
written  in  Esterhazy 's  handwriting  but  not  by  his 
hand!  .  .  .  And  the  gas  has  been  continually  ac- 
cumulating, there  has  come  to  be  a  feeling  of  acute 
tension,  of  overwhelming  oppression.  The  fighting 
in  the  court  was  a  purely  nervous  manifestation, 
simply  the  hysterical  result  of  that  tension,  and  Zola's 
letter  and  his  trial  are  a  manifestation  of  the  same 
kind.     What  would  you  have?     The  best  people. 


356  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

always  in  advance  of  the  nation,  were  bound  to  be  the 
first  to  raise  an  agitation — and  so  it  has  been.  The 
first  to  speak  was  Scherer-Kestner,  of  whom  French- 
men who  know  him  intimately  (according  to  Kova- 
levsky)  say  that  he  is  a  "sword-blade,"  so  spotless 
and  without  blemish  is  he.  The  second  is  Zola,  and 
now  he  is  being  tried. 

Yes,  Zola  is  not  Voltaire,  and  we  are  none  of  us 
Voltaires,  but  there  are  in  life  conjunctions  of  circum- 
stances when  the  reproach  that  we  are  not  Voltaires 
is  least  of  all  appropriate.  Think  of  Korolenko,  who 
defended  the  Multanovsky  natives  and  saved  them 
from  penal  servitude.  Dr.  Haas  is  not  a  Voltaire 
either,  and  yet  his  wonderful  life  has  been  well  spent 
up  to  the  end. 

I  am  well  acquainted  with  the  case  from  the 
stenographers'  report,  which  is  utterly  different  from 
what  is  in  the  newspapers,  and  I  have  a  clear  view 
of  Zola.  The  chief  point  is  that  he  is  sincere — that 
is,  he  bases  his  judgments  simply  on  what  he  sees,  and 
not  on  phantoms  like  the  others.  And  sincere  peo- 
ple can  be  mistaken,  no  doubt  of  it,  but  such  mistakes 
do  less  harm  than  calculated  insincerity,  prejudg- 
ments, or  political  considerations.  Let  Dreyfus  be 
guilty,  and  Zola  is  still  right,  since  it  is  the  duty  of 
writers  not  to  accuse,  not  to  prosecute,  but  to  cham- 
pion even  the  guilty  once  they  have  been  condemned 
and  are  enduring  punishment.  I  shall  be  told: 
"What  of  the  political  position?  The  interests  of 
the  State?"  But  great  writers  and  artists  ought  to 
take  part  in  politics  only  so  far  as  they  have  to  pro- 
tect themselves  from  pohtics.  There  are  plenty  of 
accusers,  prosecutors,  and  gendarmes  without  them, 
and  in  any  case,  the  role  of  Paul  suits  them  better 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  357 

than  that  of  Saul.  Whatever  the  verdict  may  be, 
Zola  will  anyway  experience  a  vivid  delight  after  the 
trial,  his  old  age  will  be  a  fine  old  age,  and  he  will 
die  with  a  conscience  at  peace,  or  at  any  rate  greatly 
solaced.  The  French  are  very  sick.  They  clutch  at 
every  word  of  comfort  and  at  every  genuine  reproach 
coming  to  them  from  outside.  That  is  why  Bern- 
stein's letter  and  our  Zakrevsky's  article  (which  was 
read  here  in  the  Novosti)  have  had  such  a  great  suc- 
cess here,  and  why  they  are  so  disgusted  by  abuse 
of  Zola,  such  as  the  gutter  press,  which  they  despise, 
flings  at  him  every  day.  However  neurotic  Zola 
may  be,  still  he  stands  before  the  court  of  French 
common  sense,  and  the  French  love  him  for  it  and 
are  proud  of  him,  even  though  they  do  applaud  the 
Generals  who,  in  the  simplicity  of  their  hearts,  scare 
them  first  with  the  honour  of  the  army,  then  with 
war.   .   .   . 


To  His  Brother  Alexandr. 

Nice, 
February  23,  1898. 

.  .  .  Novoye  Vremya  has  behaved  simply  abomin- 
ably about  the  Zola  case.  The  old  man  and  I  have 
exchanged  letters  on  the  subject  (in  a  tone  of  great 
moderation,  however),  and  have  both  dropped  the 
subject. 

I  don't  want  to  write  and  I  don't  want  his  letters, 
in  which  he  keeps  justifying  the  tactlessness  of  his 
paper  by  saying  he  loves  the  military:  I  don't  w^ant 
them  because  I  have  been  thoroughly  sick  of  it  all 
for  a  long  time  past.     I  love  the  military  too,  but  I 


358  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

would  not  if  I  had  a  newspaper  allow  the  cactuses 
to  print  Zola's  novel  for  nothing  in  the  Supplement, 
while  they  pour  dirty  water  over  this  same  Zola  in  the 
paper — and  what  for?  For  what  not  one  of  the  cac- 
tuses has  ever  known — for  a  noble  impulse  and  moral 
purity.  And  in  any  case  to  abuse  Zola  when  he  is 
on  his  trial — that  is  unworthy  of  literature.   .  .  . 


To  HIS  Brother  Mihail. 

Yalta, 
October  26,  1898. 

...  I  am  buying  a  piece  of  land  in  Yalta  and  am 
going  to  build  so  as  to  have  a  place  in  which  to  spend 
the  winters.  The  prospect  of  continual  wandering 
with  hotel  rooms,  hotel  porters,  chance  cooking,  and 
so  on,  and  so  on,  alarms  my  imagination.  Mother 
will  spend  the  winter  with  me.  There  is  no  winter 
here;  it's  the  end  of  October,  but  the  roses  and  other 
flowers  are  blooming  freely,  the  trees  are  green  and 
it  is  warm. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  water.  Nothing  will  be 
needed  apart  from  the  house,  no  outbuildings  of  any 
sort;  it  will  all  be  under  one  roof.  The  coal,  wood 
and  everything  will  be  in  the  basement.  The  hens 
lay  the  whole  year  round,  and  no  special  house  is 
needed  for  them,  an  enclosure  is  enough.  Close  by 
there  is  a  baker's  shop  and  the  bazaar,  so  that  it  will 
be  very  cosy  for  Mother  and  very  convenient.  By 
the  way,  there  are  chanterelles  and  boletuses  to  be 
gathered  all  the  autumn,  and  that  will  be  an  amuse- 
ment for  Mother.  I  am  not  doing  the  building  my- 
self, the  architect  is  doing  it  all.     The  houses  will  be 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  359 

ready  by  April.  The  grounds,  for  a  town  house,  are 
considerable.  There  will  be  a  garden  and  flower- 
beds, and  a  vegetable  garden.  The  railway  will  come 
to  Yalta  next  year.   .   .   . 

As  for  getting  married,  upon  which  you  are  so 
urgent — what  am  I  to  say  to  you?  To  marry  is 
interesting  only  for  love;  to  marry  a  girl  simply  be- 
cause she  is  nice  is  like  buying  something  one  does 
not  want  at  the  bazaar  solely  because  it  is  of  good 
(juality. 

The  most  important  screw  in  family  life  is  love, 
sexual  attraction,  one  flesh,  all  the  rest  is  dreary  and 
cannot  be  reckoned  upon,  however  cleverly  we  make 
our  calculations.  So  the  point  is  not  in  the  girl's 
being  nice  but  in  her  being  loved;  putting  it  off  as 
you  see  counts  for  little.   .   .   . 

My  "Uncle  Vanya"  is  being  done  all  over  the  prov- 
ince, and  everywhere  with  success.  So  one  never 
knows  where  one  will  gain  and  where  one  will  lose; 
I  had  not  reckoned  on  that  play  at  all.   .   .   . 


To  Gorky. 

Yalta, 

December  3,  1898. 

Your  last  letter  has  given  me  great  pleasure.  I 
thank  you  with  all  my  heart.  "Uncle  Vanya"  was 
written  long,  long  ago;  I  have  never  seen  it  on  the 
stage.  Of  late  years  it  has  often  been  produced  at 
provincial  theatres.  I  feel  cold  about  my  plays  as  a 
rule;  I  gave  up  the  theatre  long  ago,  and  feel  no 
desire  now  to  write  for  the  stage. 

You  ask  what  is  my  opinion  of  your  stories.  My 
opinion?     The  talent  is  unmistakable  and  it  is  a  real, 


360  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

great  talent.  For  instance,  in  the  story  "In  the 
Steppe,"  it  is  expressed  with  extraordinary  vigour, 
and  I  actually  felt  a  pang  of  envy  that  it  was  not  I 
who  had  written  it.  You  are  an  artist,  a  clever  man,, 
you  feel  superbly,  you  are  plastic — that  is,  when 
you  describe  a  thing  you  see  it  and  you  touch  it  w^ith 
your  hands.  That  is  real  art.  There  is  my  opinion 
for  you,  and  I  am  very  glad  I  can  express  it  to  you. 
I  am,  I  repeat,  very  glad,  and  if  we  could  meet  and 
talk  for  an  hour  or  two  you  would  be  convinced  of 
my  high  appreciation  of  you  and  of  the  hopes  I  am 
building  on  your  gifts. 

Shall  I  speak  now  of  defects?  But  that  is  not 
so  easy.  To  speak  of  the  defects  of  a  talent  is  like 
speaking  of  the  defects  of  a  great  tree  growing  in 
the  garden;  what  is  chiefly  in  question,  you  see,  is 
not  the  tree  itself  but  the  tastes  of  the  man  who  is 
looking  at  it.     Is  not  that  so? 

I  will  begin  by  saying  that  to  my  mind  you  have 
not  enough  restraint.  You  are  like  a  spectator  at 
the  theatre  who  expresses  his  transports  with  so 
little  restraint  that  he  prevents  himself  and  other 
people  from  listening.  Tliis  lack  of  restraint  is  par- 
ticularly felt  in  the  descriptions  of  nature  with  which 
you  interrupt  your  dialogues;  when  one  reads  those 
descriptions  one  wishes  they  were  more  compact, 
shorter,  put  into  two  or  three  lines.  The  frequent 
mention  of  tenderness,  whispering,  velvetiness,  and 
so  on,  give  those  descriptions  a  rhetorical  and 
monotonous  character — and  they  make  one  feel  cold 
and  almost  exhaust  one.  The  lack  of  restraint  is 
felt  also  in  the  descriptions  of  women  ("Malva," 
"On  the  Raft")  and  love  scenes.  It  is  not  vigour, 
not  breadth  of  touch,  but  just  lack  of  restraint.     Then 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  361 

there  is  the  frequent  use  of  words  quite  unsuitable  in 
stories  of  your  type.  "Accompaniment,"  "disc," 
"harmony,"  such  words  spoil  the  effect.  You  often 
talk  of  waves.  There  is  a  strained  feeling  and  a  sort 
of  circumspection  in  your  descriptions  of  educated 
people;  that  is  not  because  you  have  not  observed 
educated  people  sufficiently,  you  know  them,  but 
you  don't  seem  to  know  from  what  side  to  approach 
them. 

How  old  are  you?  I  don't  know  you,  I  don't 
know  where  you  came  from  or  who  you  are,  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  while  you  are  still  young  you  ought 
to  leave  Nizhni  and  spend  two  or  three  years  rubbing 
shoulders  with  literature  and  literary  people;  not  to 
learn  to  crow  like  the  rest  of  us  and  to  sharpen  your 
wits,  but  to  take  the  final  plunge  head  first  into  litera- 
ture and  to  grow  to  love  it.  Besides,  the  provinces 
age  a  man  early.  Korolenko,  Potapenko,  Mamin, 
Ertel,  are  first-rate  men;  you  would  perhaps  at  first 
feel  their  company  rather  boring,  but  in  a  year  or 
two  you  would  grow  used  to  them  and  appreciate 
them  as  they  deserve,  and  their  society  would  more 
than  repay  you  for  the  disagreeableness  and  incon- 
venience of  life  in  the  capital.   ... 


Yalta, 
January  3,  1899. 

.  .  .  Apparently  you  have  misunderstood  me  a 
little.  I  did  not  write  to  you  of  coarseness  of  style, 
but  only  of  the  incongruity  of  foreign,  not  genuinely 
Russian,  or  rarely  used  words.     In  other  authors  such 


362  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

words  as,  for  instance,  "fatalistically,"  pass  unno- 
ticed, but  your  things  are  musical,  harmonious,  and 
every  crude  touch  jars  fearfully.  Of  course  it  is  a 
question  of  taste,  and  perhaps  this  is  only  a  sign  of 
excessive  fastidiousness  in  me,  or  the  conservatism 
of  a  man  who  has  adopted  definite  habits  for  himself 
long  ago.  I  am  resigned  to  "a  collegiate  assessor/' 
and  "a  captain  of  the  second  rank,''  in  descriptions, 
but  ''flirt"  and  ''champion'  when  they  occur  in  de- 
scriptions excite  repulsion  in  me. 

Are  you  self-educated?  In  your  stories  you  are 
completely  an  artist  and  at  the  same  time  an 
"educated"  man  in  the  truest  sense. 

Nothing  is  less  characteristic  of  you  than  coarse- 
ness, you  are  clever  and  subtle  and  delicate  in  your 
feelings.  Your  best  things  are  "In  the  Steppe," 
and  "On  the  Raft," — did  I  write  to  you  about  that? 
They  are  splendid  things,  masterpieces,  they  show 
the  artist  who  has  passed  through  a  very  good  school. 
I  don't  think  that  I  am  mistaken.  The  only  defect 
is  the  lack  of  restraint,  the  lack  of  grace.  When  a 
man  spends  the  least  possible  number  of  movements 
over  some  definite  action,  that  is  grace.  One  is  con- 
scious of  superfluity  in  your  expenditure. 

The  descriptions  of  nature  are  the  work  of  an  artist ; 
you  are  a  real  landscape  painter.  Only  the  frequent 
personification  (anthropomorphism)  when  the  sea 
breathes,  the  sky  gazes,  the  steppe  barks,  nature  whis- 
pers, speaks,  mourns,  and  so  on — such  metaphors 
make  your  descriptions  somewhat  monotonous, 
sometimes  sweetish,  sometimes  not  clear;  beauty 
and  expressiveness  in  nature  are  attained  only  by 
simplicity,  by  such  simple  phrases  as  "The  sun  set," 
"It  was  dark,"   "It  began  to  rain,"  and  so  on — 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  363 

and  that  simplicity  is  characteristic  of  you  in  the 
highest  degree,  more  so  perhaps  than  of  any  other 
writer.   .   .  . 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Yalta, 
January  17,  1899. 

...  I  have  been  reading  Tolstoy's  son's  story: 
"The  Folly  of  the  Mir."  The  construction  of  the 
story  is  poor,  indeed  it  would  have  been  better  to 
write  it  simply  as  an  article,  but  the  thought  is 
treated  with  justice  and  passion.  I  am  against  the 
Commune  myself.  There  is  sense  in  the  Commune 
when  one  has  to  deal  with  external  enemies  who  make 
frequent  invasions,  and  with  wild  animals;  but  now 
it  is  a  crowd  artificially  held  together,  like  a  crowd 
of  convicts.  They  will  tell  us  Russia  is  an  agricul- 
tural country.  That  is  so,  but  the  Commune  has 
nothing  to  do  with  that,  at  any  rate  at  the  present 
time.  The  commune  exists  by  husbandry,  but  once 
husbandry  begins  to  pass  into  scientific  agriculture 
the  commune  begins  to  crack  at  every  seam,  as  the 
commune  and  culture  are  not  compatible  ideas.  Our 
national  drunkenness  and  profound  ignorance  are,  by 
the  way,  sins  of  the  commune  system.   .   .   . 


To  HIS  Brother  Mihail. 

Yalta, 
Februarv  6,  1899. 

.  .  .  Being  bored,  I  am  reading  "The  Book  of  my 
Life"  by  Bishop  Porfiry.  This  passage  about  war 
occurs  in  it: 


364  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

"Standing  armies  in  time  of  peace  are  locusts  de- 
vouring the  people's  bread  and  leaving  a  vile  stench 
in  society,  while  in  time  of  war  they  are  artificial  fight- 
ing machines,  and  when  they  grow  and  develop,  fare- 
well to  freedom,  security,  and  national  glory!  .  .  . 
They  are  the  lawless  defenders  of  unjust  and  partial 
laws,  of  privilege  and  of  tyranny."  .   .   . 

That  was  written  in  the  forties.   .   .   . 


To  I.  I.  Orlov. 

Yalta, 
February  22,  1899. 

...  In  your  letter  there  is  a  text  from  Scripture. 
To  your  complaint  in  regard  to  the  tutor  and  failures 
of  all  sorts  I  will  reply  by  another  text:  "Put  not  thy 
trust  in  princes  nor  in  any  sons  of  man"  .  .  .  and  I 
recall  another  expression  in  regard  to  the  sons  of 
man,  those  in  particular  who  so  annoy  you:  they  are 
the  sons  of  their  age. 

Not  the  tutor  but  the  whole  educated  class — that 
is  to  blame,  my  dear  sir.  While  the  young  men  and 
women  are  students  they  are  a  good  honest  set,  they 
are  our  hope,  they  are  the  future  of  Russia,  but  no 
sooner  do  those  students  enter  upon  independent  life 
and  become  grown  up  than  our  hope  and  the  future 
of  Russia  vanishes  in  smoke,  and  all  that  is  left  in 
the  filter  is  doctors  owning  house  property,  hungry 
government  clerks,  and  thieving  engineers.  Re- 
member that  Katkov,  Pobyedonostsev,  Vishnegrad- 
sky,  w^ere  nurselings  of  the  Universities,  that  they 
were  our  Professors — not  military  despots,  but  pro- 
fessors, luminaries.  ...  I  don't  believe  in  our 
educated  class,  which  is  hypocritical,  false,  hysteri- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  365 

cal,  badly  educated  and  indolent.  I  don't  believe 
in  it  even  when  it's  suffering  and  complaining,  for 
its  oppressors  come  from  its  own  entrails.  I  believe 
in  individual  people,  I  see  salvation  in  individual 
personalities  scattered  here  and  there  all  over  Rus- 
sia— educated  people  or  peasants — they  have 
strength  though  they  are  few.  No  prophet  is 
honoured  in  his  own  country,  but  the  individual  per- 
sonalities of  whom  I  am  speaking  play  an  unnoticed 
part  in  society,  they  are  not  domineering,  but  their 
work  can  be  seen;  anyway,  science  is  advancing  and 
advancing,  social  self-consciousness  is  growing, 
moral  questions  begin  to  take  an  uneasy  character, 
and  so  on,  and  so  on — and  all  this  is  being  done  in 
spite  of  the  prosecutors,  the  engineers,  and  the  tutors, 
in  spite  of  the  intellectual  class  en  masse  and  in  spite 
of  everything.   .   .  . 


To  Madame  Avilov. 

Yalta, 
March  9,  1899. 

I  shall  not  be  at  the  writers'  congress.  In  the 
autumn  I  shall  be  in  the  Crimea  or  abroad — that  is, 
of  course,  if  I  am  alive  and  free.  I  am  going  to  spend 
the  whole. summer  on  my  own  place  in  the  Serpuhov 
district.* 

By  the  way,  in  what  district  of  the  Tula  province 
have  you  bought  your  estate?  For  the  first  two 
years  after  buying  an  estate  one  has  a  hard  time,  at 
moments  it  is  very  bad  indeed,  but  by  degrees  one 
is  led  to  Nirvana,  by  sweet  habit.  I  bought  an  es- 
tate and  mortgaged  it,  I  had  a  very  hard  time  the 

*  Melihovo. 


366  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

first  years  (famine,  cholera).  Afterwards  every- 
thing went  well,  and  now  it  is  pleasant  to  remember 
that  I  have  somewhere  near  the  Oka  a  nook  of  my 
own.  I  live  in  peace  with  the  peasants,  they  never 
steal  anything  from  me,  and  when  I  walk  through  the 
village  the  old  women  smile  and  cross  themselves. 
I  use  the  formal  address  to  all  except  children,  and 
never  shout  at  them ;  but  what  has  done  most  to  build 
up  our  good  relations  is  medicine.  You  will  be 
happy  on  your  estate,  only  please  don't  listen  to  any- 
one's advice  and  gloomy  prognostications,  and  don't 
at  first  be  disappointed,  or  form  an  opinion  about  the 
peasants.  The  peasants  behave  sullenly  and  not  gen- 
uinely to  all  new-comers,  and  especially  so  in  the 
Tula  province.  There  is  indeed  a  saying:  "He's  a 
good  man  though  he  is  from  Tula." 

So  here's  something  like  a  sermon  for  you,  you  see, 
madam.     Are  you  satisfied? 

Do  you  know  L.  N.  Tolstoy?  Will  your  estate 
be  far  from  Tolstoy's?  If  it  is  near  I  shall  envy  you. 
I  like  Tolstoy  very  much. 

Speaking  of  new  writers,  you  throw  Melshin  in 
with  a  whole  lot.  That's  not  right.  Melshin  stands 
apart.  He  is  a  great  and  unappreciated  writer,  an 
intelligent,  powerful  writer,  though  perhaps  he  will 
not  write  more  than  he  has  written  already.  Kuprin 
I  have  not  read  at  all.  Gorky  I  like,  but  of  late  he 
has  taken  to  writing  rubbish,  revolting  rubbish,  so 
that  I  shall  soon  give  up  reading  him.  "Humble 
People"  is  good,  though  one  could  have  done 
without  Buhvostov,  whose  presence  brings  into  the 
story  an  element  of  strain,  of  tiresomeness  and 
even  falsity.  Korolenko  is  a  delightful  writer.  He 
is    loved — and    with    good    reason.     Apart    from 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  367 

all    the    rest    there    is    sobriety    and    purity    in 
him. 

You  ask  whether  I  am  sorry  for  Suvorin.  Of 
course  I  am.  He  is  paying  heavily  for  his  mistakes. 
But  I'm  not  at  all  sorry  for  those  who  are  surrounding 
him.   .   .   . 


To  Gorky. 


Moscow, 
April  25,  1899. 


6i 


.  .  .  The  day  before  yesterday  I  was  at  L.  N. 
Tolstoy's;  he  praised  you  very  highly  and  said  that 
you  were  "a  remarkable  writer."  He  likes  your 
The  Fair"  and  "In  the  Steppe,"  and  does  not  like 
Malva."  He  said:  "You  can  invent  anything  you 
like,  but  you  can't  invent  psychology,  and  in  Gorky 
one  comes  across  just  psychological  inventions:  he 
describes  what  he  has  never  felt."  So  much  for  you  I 
I  said  that  when  you  were  next  in  Moscow  we  would 
go  together  to  see  him. 

When  will  you  be  in  Moscow  ?  On  Thursday  there 
will  be  a  private  performance — for  me — of  "The 
Seagull."  If  you  come  to  Moscow  I  will  give  3'OU  a 
seal,.   ... 

From  Petersburg  I  get  painful  letters,  as  it  were 
from  the  damned,*  and  it's  painful  to  me  as  I  don't 
know  what  to  answer,  how  to  behave.  Yes,  life 
when  it  is  not  a  psychological  invention  is  a  difficult 
business.   .   .   . 

*  From  Suvorin. 


368  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


To  0.  L.  Knipper. 

Yalta, 
September  30,  1899. 

At  your  command  I  hasten  to  answer  your  letter 
in  which  you  ask  me  about  Astrov's  last  scene  with 
Elena. 

You  write  that  Astrov  addresses  Elena  in  that 
scene  like  the  most  ardent  lover,  "clutches  at  his  feel- 
ing like  a  drowning  man  at  a  straw." 

But  that's  not  right,  not  right  at  all !  Astrov  likes 
Elena,  she  attracts  him  by  her  beauty;  but  in  the 
last  act  he  knows  already  that  nothing  will  come  of  it, 
and  he  talks  to  her  in  that  scene  in  the  same  tone  as 
of  the  heat  in  Africa,  and  kisses  her  quite  casually,  to 
pass  the  time.  If  Astrov  takes  that  scene  violently, 
the  whole  mood  of  the  fourth  act — quiet  and  des- 
pondent— is  lost.   .   .  . 

To    G.    I.    ROSSOLIMO. 

Yalta, 
October  11,  1899. 

.  ,  .  Autobiography?  I  have  a  disease — Auto- 
biographophobia.  To  read  any  sort  of  details  about 
myself,  and  still  more  to  write  them  for  print,  is  a 
veritable  torture  to  me.  On  a  separate  sheet  I  send 
a  few  facts,  very  bald,  but  I  can  do  no  more.   .   .  . 

I,  A.  P.  Chekhov,  was  born  on  the  17th  of  Jan- 
uaiy,  1860,  at  Taganrog.  I  was  educated  first  in  the 
Greek  School  near  the  church  of  Tsar  Constantine; 
then  in  the  Taganrog  high  school.  In  1879 1  entered 
the  Moscow  University  in  the  Faculty  of  Medicine. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  369 

I  had  at  the  time  only  a  slight  idea  of  the  Facul- 
ties in  general,  and  chose  the  Faculty  of  Medicine 
I  don't  remember  on  what  grounds,  but  did  not  re- 
gret my  choice  afterwards.  I  began  in  my  first  year 
to  publish  stories  in  the  weekly  journals  and  news- 
papers, and  these  literary  pursuits  had,  early  in  the 
eighties,  acquired  a  permanent  professional  charac- 
ter. In  1888  I  took  the  Pushkin  prize.  In  1890 
I  travelled  to  the  Island  of  Sahalin,  to  write  after- 
wards a  book  upon  our  penal  colony  and  prisons 
there.  Not  counting  reviews,  feuilletons,  para- 
graphs, and  all  that  I  have  written  from  day  to  day 
for  the  newspapers,  which  it  would  be  difficult  now  to 
seek  out  and  collect,  I  have,  during  my  twenty  years 
of  literary  work,  published  more  than  three  hundred 
signatures  of  print,  of  tales,  and  novels.  I  have  also 
written  plays  for  the  stage. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  study  of  medicine  has 
had  an  important  influence  on  my  literary  work;  it 
has  considerably  enlarged  the  sphere  of  my  observa- 
tion, has  enriched  me  with  knowledge  the  true  value 
of  which  for  me  as  a  writer  can  only  be  understood  by 
one  who  is  himself  a  doctor.  It  has  also  had  a  guid- 
ing influence,  and  it  is  probably  due  to  my  close  as- 
sociation with  medicine  that  I  have  succeeded  in 
avoiding  many  mistakes. 

Familiarity  with  the  natural  sciences  and  with 
scientific  method  has  always  kept  me  on  my  guard, 
and  I  have  always  tried  where  it  was  possible  to  be 
consistent  with  the  facts  of  science,  and  where  it  was 
impossible  I  have  preferred  not  to  write  at  all.  I 
may  observe  in  passing  that  the  conditions  of  artistic 
creation  do  not  always  admit  of  complete  harmony 
with  the  facts  of  science.     It  is  impossible  to  repre- 


370  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

sent  upon  the  stage  a  death  from  poisoning  exactly 
as  it  takes  place  in  reality.  But  harmony  with  the 
facts  of  science  must  be  felt  even  under  those  condi- 
tions— i.e.,  it  must  be  clear  to  the  reader  or  spectator 
that  this  is  only  due  to  the  conditions  of  art,  and  that 
he  has  to  do  with  a  writer  who  understands. 

I  do  not  belong  to  the  class  of  literary  men  who 
take  up  a  sceptical  attitude  towards  science;  and  to 
the  class  of  those  who  rush  into  everything  with  only 
their  own  imagination  to  go  upon,  I  should  not  like  to 
belong.   .   .   . 

To  0.  L.  Knipper. 

Yalta, 
October  30,  1899. 

.  .  .  You  ask  whether  I  shall  be  excited,  but  you 
see  I  only  heard  properly  that  "Uncle  Vanya"  was  to 
be  given  on  the  twenty-sixth  from  your  letter  which 
I  got  on  the  twenty-seventh.  The  telegrams  began 
coming  on  the  evening  of  the  twenty-seventh  when  I 
was  in  bed.  They  send  them  on  to  me  by  telephone. 
I  woke  up  every  time  and  ran  with  bare  feet  to  the 
telephone,  and  got  very  much  chilled;  then  I  had 
scarcely  dozed  off  when  the  bell  rang  again  and  again. 
It's  the  first  time  that  my  own  fame  has  kept  me 
awake.  The  next  evening  when  I  went  to  bed  I  put 
my  slippers  and  dressing-gown  beside  my  bed,  but 
there  were  no  more  telegrams. 

The  telegrams  were  full  of  nothing  but  the  number 
of  calls  and  the  brilliant  success,  but  there  was  a 
subtle,  almost  elusive  something  in  them  from  which 
I  could  conclude  that  the  state  of  mind  of  all  of  you 
was  not  exactly  of  the  very  best.  The  newspapers 
I  have  got  to-day  confirm  my  conjectures. 

Yes,  dear  actress,  ordinary  medium  success  is  not 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  371 

enough  now  for  all  you  artistic  players:  you  want  an 
uproar,  big  guns,  dynamite.  You  have  been  spoiled 
at  last,  deafened  by  constant  talk  about  successes, 
full  and  not  full  houses:  you  are  already  poisoned 
with  that  drug,  and  in  another  two  or  three  years 
you  will  be  good  for  nothing !      So  much  for  you ! 

How  are  you  getting  on?  How  are  you  feeling? 
I  am  still  in  the  same  place,  and  am  still  the  same; 
I  am  working  and  planting  trees. 

But  visitors  have  come,  I  can't  go  on  writing. 
Visitors  have  been  sitting  here  for  more  than  an  hour. 
They  have  asked  for  tea.  They  have  sent  for  the 
samovar.     Oh,  how  dreary! 

Don't  forget  me,  and  don't  let  your  friendship  for 
me  die  away,  so  that  we  may  go  away  together 
somewhere  again  this  summer.  Good-bye  for  the 
present.  We  shall  most  likely  not  meet  before  April. 
If  you  would  all  come  in  the  spring  to  Yalta,  would 
act  here  and  rest — that  would  be  wonderfully  artistic. 
A  visitor  will  take  this  letter  and  drop  it  into  the  post- 
box.   .   .   . 

P.  S. — Dear  actress,  write  for  the  sake  of  all  that's 
holy,  I  am  so  dull  and  depressed.  I  might  be  in 
prison  and  I  rage  and  rage.   .   .  . 


Yalta, 
November  1,  1899. 

I  understand  your  mood,  dear  actress,  I  under- 
stand it  very  well ;  but  yet  in  your  place  I  would  not 
be  so  desperately  upset.     Both  the  part  of  Anna  * 

*  In  Hauptmann's  "Lonely  Lives." 


372  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

and  the  play  itself  are  not  worth  wasting  so  much 
feeling  and  nerves  over.  It  is  an  old  play.  It  is 
already  out  of  date,  and  there  are  a  great  many  de- 
fects in  it;  if  more  than  half  the  performers  have 
not  fallen  into  the  right  tone,  then  naturally  it  is  the 
fault  of  the  play.  That's  one  thing,  and  the  second 
is,  you  must  once  and  for  all  give  up  being  worried 
about  successes  and  failures.  Don't  let  that  concern 
you.  It's  your  duty  to  go  on  working  steadily  day 
by  day,  quite  quietly,  to  be  prepared  for  mistakes 
which  are  inevitable,  for  failures — in  short,  to  do  your 
job  as  actress  and  let  other  people  count  the  calls 
before  the  curtain.  To  write  or  to  act,  and  to  be 
conscious  at  the  time  that  one  is  not  doing  the  right 
thing — that  is  so  usual,  and  for  beginners  so  prof- 
itable ! 

The  third  thing  is  that  the  director  has  telegraphed 
that  the  second  performance  went  magnificently,  that 
everyone  played  splendidly,  and  that  he  was  com- 
pletely satisfied.  .  .  . 


To  Gorky. 

Yalta, 
January  2,  1900. 

Precious  Alexey  Maximovitch, 

I  wish  you  a  happy  New  Year !  How  are  you 
getting  on?  How  are  you  feeling?  When  are  you 
coming  to  Yalta?  Write  fully.  I  have  received 
the  photograph,  it  is  ver}^good;  many  thanks  for 
it. 

Thank  you,  too,  for  the  trouble  you  have  taken  in 
regard  to  our  committee  for  assisting  invalids  coming 
here.     Send  any  money  there  is  or  will  be  to  me,  or 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  373 

to  the  executive  of  the  Benevolent  Society,  no  matter 
which.  * 

My  story  (i.e.,  "In  the  Ravine")  has  already  been 
sent  off  to  Zhizn.  Did  I  tell  you  that  I  liked  your 
story  "An  Orphan"  extremely,  and  sent  it  to 
Moscow  to  first-rate  readers?  There  is  a  certain 
Professor  Foht  in  the  Medical  Faculty  in  Moscow 
who  reads  Slyeptsov  capitally.  I  don't  know  a 
better  reader.  So  I  have  sent  your  "Orphan"  to 
him.  Did  I  tell  you  how  much  I  liked  a  story  in  your 
third  volume,  "My  Travelling  Companion"?  There 
is  the  same  strength  in  it  as  "In  the  Steppe."  If  I 
were  you,  I  would  take  the  best  things  out  of  your 
three  volumes  and  republish  them  in  one  volume 
at  a  rouble — and  that  would  be  something  really 
remarkable  for  vigour  and  harmony.  As  it  is, 
everything  seems  shaken  up  together  in  the  three 
volumes;  there  are  no  weak  things,  but  it  leaves  an 
impression  as  though  the  three  volumes  were  not  the 
work  of  one  author  but  of  seven. 

Scribble  me  a  line  or  two. 


To  0.  L.  Knipper. 

Yalta, 
January  2,  1900. 

My  greetings,  dear  actress!  Are  you  angry  that 
I  haven't  written  for  so  long?  I  used  to  write  often, 
but  you  didn't  get  my  letters  because  our  common 
acquaintance  intercepted  them  in  the  post. 

I  wish  you  all  happiness  in  the  New  Year.  I  really 
do  wish  you  happiness  and  bow  down  to  your  little 
feet.     Be  happy,  wealthy,  healthy,  and  gay. 


374  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

We  are  getting  on  pretty  well,  we  eat  a  great  deal, 
chatter  a  great  deal,  laugh  a  great  deal,  and  often 
talk  of  you.  Masha  will  tell  you  when  she  goes  back 
to  Moscow  how  we  spent  Christmas. 

I  have  not  congratulated  you  on  the  success  of 
"Lonely  Lives."  I  still  dream  that  you  will  all 
come  to  Yalta,  that  I  shall  see  "Lonely  Lives"  on 
the  stage,  and  congratulate  you  really  from  my 
heart.  I  wrote  to  Meierhold,*  and  urged  him  in  my 
letter  not  to  be  too  violent  in  the  part  of  a  nervous 
man.  The  immense  majority  of  people  are  nervous, 
you  know:  the  greater  number  suffer,  and  a  small 
proportion  feel  acute  pain ;  but  where — in  streets  and 
in  houses — do  you  see  people  tearing  about,  leaping 
up,  and  clutching  at  their  heads?  Suffering  ought 
to  be  expressed  as  it  is  expressed  in  life — that  is, 
not  by  the  arms  and  legs,  but  by  the  tone  and  expres- 
sion; not  by  gesticulation,  but  by  grace.  Subtle 
emotions  of  the  soul  in  educated  people  must  be 
subtly  expressed  in  an  external  way.  You  will  say 
— stage  conditions.     No  conditions  allow  falsity. 

My  sister  tells  me  that  you  played  "Anna" 
exquisitely.  Ah,  if  only  the  Art  Theatre  would 
come  to  Yalta !  Novoye  Vremya  highly  praised  your 
company.  There  is  a  change  of  tactics  in  that 
quarter;  evidently  they  are  going  to  praise  you  all 
even  in  Lent.  My  story,  a  very  queer  one,  will  be  in 
the  February  number  of  Zhizn.  There  are  a  great 
number  of  characters,  there  is  scenery  too,  there's 
a  crescent  moon,  there's  a  bittern  that  cries  far,  far 
awav:  "Boo — oo!  boo — oo!"  like  a  cow  shut  up  in  a 
shed.     There's  everything  in  it. 

*  An  actor  at  the  Art  Theatre  at  that  time  playing  Johannes 
in  Hauptmann's  "Lonely  Lives." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  375 

Levitan  is  with  us.  Over  my  fireplace  he  has 
painted  a  moonlight  night  in  the  hayfield,  cocks  of 
hay,  forest  in  the  distance,  a  moon  reigning  on  high 
above  it  all. 

Well,  the  best  of  health  to  you,  dear,  wonderful 
actress.      I  have  been  pining  for  you. 

And  when  are  you  going  to  send  me  your  photo- 
graph?    What  treachery! 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Yalta, 

January  8,  1900. 

.  .  .  My  health  is  not  so  bad.  I  feel  better  than 
I  did  last  year,  but  yet  the  doctors  won't  let  me  leave 
Yalta.  I  am  as  tired  and  sick  of  this  charming  town 
as  of  a  disagreeable  wife.  It's  curing  me  of  tuber- 
culosis, but  it's  making  me  ten  years  older.  If  I 
go  to  Nice  it  won't  be  before  February.  I  am  writ- 
ing a  little;  not  long  ago  I  sent  a  long  story  to  Zhizn. 
Money  is  short,  all  I  have  received  so  far  from  Marks 
for  the  plays  is  gone  by  now.   .   .   . 

If  Prince  Baryatinsky  is  to  be  judged  by  his  paper, 
I  must  own  I  was  unjust  to  him,  for  I  imagined  him 
very  different  from  what  he  is.  They  will  shut  up 
his  paper,  of  course,  but  he  will  long  maintain  his 
reputation  as  a  good  journalist.  You  ask  me  why 
the  Syeverny  Kurier  is  successful?  Because  our 
society  is  exhausted,  hatred  has  turned  it  as  rank 
and  rotten  as  grass  in  a  bog,  and  it  has  a  longing  for 
something  fresh,  free,  light — a  desperate  longing. 

•3f  4f  *  *  *  * 

I  often  see  the  academician  Kondakov  here.  We 
talk  of  the   Pushkin  section   of  belles-lettres.     As 


376  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Kondakov  will  take  part  in  the  elections  of  future 
academicians,  I  am  trying  to  hypnotize  him,  and 
suggest  that  they  should  elect  Barantsevitch  and 
Mihailovsky.  The  former  is  broken  down  and  worn 
out.  He  is  unquestionably  a  literary  man,  is 
poverty-stricken  in  his  old  age.  .  .  .  An  income 
and  rest  would  be  the  very  thing  for  him.  The 
latter — that  is  Mihailovsky — would  make  a  good 
foundation  for  the  new  section,  and  his  election  would 
satisfy  three-quarters  of  the  brotherhood.  But  my 
hypnotism  failed,  my  efforts  came  to  nothing. 
The  supplementar)^  clauses  to  the  statute  are  like 
Tolstoy's  After-word  to  the  Kreutzer  Sonata.  The 
academicians  have  done  all  they  can  to  protect 
themselves  from  literary  men,  whose  society  shocks 
them  as  the  society  of  the  Russian  academicians 
shocked  the  Germans.  Literary  men  can  only  be 
honorary  academicians,  and  that  means  nothing — it  is 
just  the  same  as  being  an  honorary  citizen  of  the  town 
of  Vyazma  or  Tcherepovets,  there  is  no  salary  and  no 
vote  attached.  A  clever  way  out  of  it!  The  pro- 
fessors will  be  elected  real  academicians,  and  those 
of  the  writers  will  be  elected  honorary  academicians 
who  do  not  live  in  Petersburg,  and  so  cannot 
be  present  at  the  sittings  and  abuse  the  pro- 
fessors. 

I  hear  the  muezzin  calling  in  the  minaret.  The 
Turks  are  very  religious;  it's  their  fast  now,  they  eat 
nothing  the  whole  day.  They  have  no  religious 
ladies,  that  element  which  makes  religion  shallow 
as  the  sand  does  the  Volga. 

You  do  well  to  print  the  martyrology  of  Russian 
towns  avoided  by  the  extortionate  railway  con- 
tractors.    Here  is  what  the  famous  author  Chekhov 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  377 

wrote  on  the  subject  in  his  story  "My  Life."  ^ 
Railway  contractors  are  revengeful  people;  refuse 
them  a  trifle,  and  they  will  punish  you  for  it  all  your 
life — and  it's  their  tradition. 

Thanks  for  your  letter,  thanks  for  your  indulgence. 


To    P.    L    KURKIN. 

Yalta, 
January  18,  1900. 

Dear  Pyotr  Ivanovitch, 

Thank  you  for  your  letter.  I  have  long  been 
wanting  to  write  to  you,  but  have  never  had  time, 
under  the  load  of  business  and  official  correspondence. 
Yesterday  was  the  17th  of  January — my  name-day, 
and  the  day  of  my  election  to  the  Academy.  What 
a  lot  of  telegrams!  And  what  a  lot  of  letters  still 
to  come !  And  I  must  answer  all  of  them,  or  posterity 
will  accuse  me  of  not  knowing  the  laws  of  good 
manners. 

There  is  news,  but  I  won't  tell  you  it  now  (no  time) , 
but  later  on.  I  am  not  very  well.  I  was  ailing  ail 
yesterday.     I  press  your  hand  heartily.     Keep  well. 


To    V.    M.    SOBOLEVSKY. 

Yalta, 
January  19,  1900. 

Dear  Vassily  Mihailovitch, 

In  November  I  wrote  a  story  f  fully  intending 
to  send  it  to  Russkiya  Vyedomosti,  but  the  story 
lengthened  out  beyond  the  sixteen  pages,  and  I  had 

*  Appended  to  the  letter  was  a  printed  cutting. 
t  "In  the  Ravine." 


378  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

to  send  it  elsewhere.  Then  Elpatyevsky  and  I 
decided  to  send  you  a  telegram  on  New  Year's  Eve, 
but  there  was  such  a  rush  and  a  whirl  that  we  let  the 
right  moment  slip,  and  now  I  send  you  my  New  Year 
wishes.  Forgive  me  my  many  transgressions.  You 
know  how  deeply  I  love  and  respect  you,  and  if  the 
intervals  in  our  correspondence  are  prolonged  it's 
merely  external  causes  that  are  to  blame. 

I  am  alive  and  almost  well.  I  am  often  ill,  but  not 
for  long  at  a  time;  and  I  haven't  once  been  kept  in 
bed  this  winter,  I  keep  about  though  I  am  ill.  I  am 
working  harder  than  I  did  last  year,  and  I  am  more 
bored.  It's  bad  being  without  Russia  in  every  way. 
.  .  .  All  the  evergreen  trees  look  as  though  they 
were  made  of  tin,  and  one  gets  no  joy  out  of  them. 
And  one  sees  nothing  interesting,  as  one  has  no  taste 
for  the  local  life. 

Elpatyevsky  and  Kondakov  are  here.  The  former 
has  run  up  a  huge  house  for  himself  which  towers 
above  all  Yalta;  the  latter  is  going  to  Petersburg  to 
take  his  seat  in  the  Academy — and  is  glad  to  go. 
Elpatyevsky  is  cheerful  and  hearty,  always  in  good 
spirits,  goes  out  in  all  weathers,  in  a  summer  over- 
coat; Kondakov  is  irritably  sarcastic,  and  goes  about 
in  a  fur  coat.  Both  often  come  and  see  me  and  we 
speak  of  you. 

V.  A.  wrote  that  she  had  bought  a  piece  of  land  in 
Tuapse.  Oy-oy!  but  the  boredom  there  is  awful,  you 
know.  There  are  Tchetchentsi  and  scorpions,  and 
worst  of  all  there  are  no  roads,  and  there  won't  be 
any  for  a  long  time.  Of  all  warm  places  in  Russia 
the  best  are  on  the  south  coast  of  the  Crimea,  there 
is  no  doubt  of  that,  whatever  they  may  say  about  the 
natural  beauties  of  the  Caucasus.     I  have  been  lately 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  379 

to  Gurzufa,  near  Pushkin's  rock,  and  admired  the 
view,  although  it  rained  and  akhough  I  am  sick  to 
death  of  views.  In  the  Crimea  it  is  snugger  and  nearer 
to  Russia.  Let  V.  A.  sell  her  place  in  Tuapse  or  make 
a  present  of  it  to  someone,  and  I  will  find  her  a  bit  of 
the  sea-front  with  bathing,  and  a  bay,  in  the  Crimea. 
When  you  are  in  Vosdvizhenka  give  my  respects 
and  greetings  to  Varvara  Alexyevna,  Varya,  Natasha, 
and  Glyeb.  I  can  fancy  how  Glyeb  and  Natasha  have 
grown.  Now  if  only  you  would  all  come  here  for 
Easter,  I  could  have  a  look  at  you  all.  Don't  forget 
me,  please,  and  don't  be  angry  with  me.  I  send  you 
my  warmest  good  wishes.  I  press  your  hand  heartily 
and  embrace  vou. 


To  G.  L  RossoLiMO. 

Yalta, 

January  21,  1900. 

Dear  Grigory  Ivanovitch, 

...  I  send  you  in  a  registered  parcel  what 
I  have  that  seems  suitable  for  children — two  stories  of 
the  life  of  a  dog.  And  I  think  I  have  nothing  else  of 
the  sort.  I  don't  know  how  to  write  for  children;  I 
write  for  them  once  in  ten  years,  and  so-called  chil- 
dren's books  I  don't  like  and  don't  believe  in.  Chil- 
:dren  ought  only  to  be  given  what  is  suitable  also  for 
grown-up  people.  Andersen,  "The  Frigate  Pal- 
lada,"  Gogol,  are  easily  read  by  children  and  also 
by  grown-up  people.  Books  should  not  be  written 
for  children,  but  one  ought  to  know  how  to  choose 
from  what  has  been  written  for  grown-up  people — 


that  is,  from  real  works  of  art.     To  be  able  to  select 
among  drugs,  and  to  administer  them  in  suitable 


380  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

doses,  is  more  direct  and  consistent  than  trying  to 
invent  a  special  remedy  for  the  patient  because  he 
is  a  child.  Forgive  the  medical  comparison.  It's 
in  keeping  with  the  moment,  perhaps,  as  for  the  last 
four  days  I  have  been  occupied  with  medicine,  doctor- 
ing my  mother  and  myself.  Influenza  no  doubt. 
Fever  and  headache. 

If  I  write  anything,  I  will  let  you  know  in  due  time, 
but  anything  I  write  can  only  be  published  by  one 
man — Marks!  For  anything  published  by  anyone 
else  I  have  to  pay  a  fine  of  5,000  roubles  (per  signa- 
ture).  .   .   . 


To  0.  L.  Knipper. 

Yalta, 
January  22,  1900. 

Dear  Actress, 

On  January  17th  I  had  telegrams  from  your 
mother  and  your  brother,  from  your  uncle  Alexandr 
Ivanovitch  (signed  Uncle  Sasha),  and  from  N.  N. 
Sokolovsky.  Be  so  good  as  to  give  them  my  warm 
thanks  and  the  expression  of  my  sincere  feeling  for 
them. 

Why  don't  you  write? — what  has  happened?  Or 
are  you  already  so  fascinated?  .  .  .  Well,  there  is 
no  help  for  it.      God  be  with  you ! 

I  am  told  that  in  May  you  will  be  in  Yalta.  If  that 
is  settled,  why  shouldn't  you  make  inquiries  before- 
hand about  the  theatre?  The  theatre  here  is  let  on 
lease,  and  you  could  not  get  hold  of  it  without  nego- 
tiating with  the  tenant,  Novikov  the  actor.  If  you 
commission  me  to  do  so  I  would  perhaps  talk  to  him 
about  it. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  381 

The  17th,  my  name-day  and  the  day  of  my  election 
to  the  Academy,  passed  dingily  and  gloomily,  as  I 
was  unwell.  Now  I  am  better,  but  my  mother  is  ail- 
ing. And  these  little  troubles  completely  took  away 
all  taste  and  inclination  for  a  name-day  or  election 
to  the  Academy,  and  they,  too,  have  hindered  me  from 
writing  to  you  and  answering  your  telegram  at  the 
proper  time. 

Mother  is  getting  better  now. 

I  see  the  Sredins  at  times.  They  come  to  see  us, 
and  I  go  to  them  very,  very  rarely,  but  still  I 
do  go.   .   .   . 

So,  then,  you  are  not  writing  to  me  and  not  intend- 
ing to  write  very  soon  either.  ...  X.  is  to  blame 
for  all  that.     I  understand  you ! 

I  kiss  your  little  hand. 


To  F.  D.  Batyushkov. 

Yalta, 
January  24,  1900. 

Much  respected  F.  D., 

Roche  asks  me  to  send  him  the  passages 
from  "Peasants"  which  were  cut  out  by  the  Censor, 
but  there  were  no  such  passages.  There  is  one 
chapter  which  has  not  appeared  in  the  magazine, 
nor  in  the  book.  It  was  a  conversation  of  the 
peasants  about  religion  and  government.  But  there 
is  no  need  to  send  that  chapter  to  Paris,  as  indeed 
there  was  no  need  to  translate  "Peasants"  into  French 
at  all. 

I  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  the  photograph; 
Ryepin's  illustration  is  an  honour  I  had  not  expected 
oi'  dreamed  of.     It  will  be  very  pleasant  to  have  the 


382  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

original;  tell  Ilya  Efimovitch  ^  that  I  shall  expect  it 
with  impatience,  and  that  he  cannot  change  his  mind 
now,  as  I  have  already  bequeathed  the  original  to 
the  town  of  Taganrog — in  which,  by  the  way,  I  was 
born. 

In  your  letter  you  speak  of  Gorky:  how  do  you 
like  Gorky?  I  don't  like  everything  he  writes, 
but  there  are  things  I  like  very,  very  much,  and  to 
my  mind  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  doubt  that  Gorky 
is  made  of  the  dough  of  which  artists  are  made. 
He  is  the  real  thing.  He's  a  fine  man,  clever,  think- 
ing, and  thoughtful.  But  there  is  a  lot  of  unneces- 
sary ballast  upon  him  and  in  him — for  example,  his 
provincialism.   .   .   . 

Thanks  very  much  for  your  letter,  for  remembering 
me.  I  am  dull  here,  I  am  sick  of  it,  and  I  have  a 
feeling  as  though  I  have  been  thrown  overboard. 
And  the  weather's  bad  too,  and  I  am  not  well.  I  still 
go  on  coughing.     All  good  wishes. 


To  M.  0.  Menshikov. 

Yalta, 
January  28,  1900. 

...  I  can't  make  out  what  Tolstoy's  illness  is. 
Tcherinov  has  sent  me  no  answer,  and  from  what  I 
read  in  the  papers  and  what  you  write  me  now  I  can 
draw  no  conclusion.  Ulcers  in  the  stomach  and 
intestines  would  give  different  indications:  they  are 
not  present,  or  there  have  been  a  few  bleeding  wounds 
caused  by  gall-stones  which  have  passed  and  lacer- 

*  Ryepin,  who  was,  at  the  request  of  Roche,  the  French 
translator,  illustrating  the  French  edition  of  Chekhov's  "Peas- 
ants." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  383 

ated  the  walls.  There  is  no  cancer  either.  It 
would  have  shown  itself  first  in  the  appetite,  in 
the  general  condition,  and  above  all  the  face  would 
have  betrayed  cancer  if  he  had  had  it.  The  most 
likely  thing  is  that  L.  N.  is  in  good  health  (apart 
from  the  gall-stones),  and  will  live  another  twenty 
years.  His  illness  frightened  me,  and  kept  me  on 
tenter-hooks.  I  am  afraid  of  Tolstoy's  death.  If 
he  were  to  die  there  would  be  a  big  empty  place  in 
my  life.  To  begin  with,  because  I  have  never  loved 
any  man  as  much  as  him.  I  am  not  a  believing 
man,  but  of  all  beliefs  I  consider  his  the  nearest 
and  most  akin  to  me.  Secondly,  while  Tolstoy  is  in 
literature  it  is  easy  and  pleasant  to  be  a  literary 
man;  even  recognizing  that  one  has  done  nothing 
and  never  will  do  anything  is  not  so  dreadful,  since 
Tolstoy  will  do  enough  for  all.  His  work  is  the 
justification  of  the  enthusiasms  and  expectations 
built  upon  literature.  Thirdly,  Tolstoy  takes  a  firm 
stand,  he  has  an  immense  authority,  and  so  long 
as  he  is  alive,  bad  tastes  in  literature,  vulgarity  of 
every  kind,  insolent  and  lachrymose,  all  the  bristling, 
exasperated  vanities  will  be  in  the  far  background, 
in  the  shade.  Nothing  but  his  moral  authority  is 
capable  of  maintaining  a  certain  elevation  in  the 
moods  and  tendencies  of  literature  so  called.  With- 
out him  they  would  be  a  flock  without  a  shepherd, 
or  a  hotch-potch,  in  which  it  would  be  difficult  to 
discriminate  anything. 

To  finish  with  Tolstoy,  I  have  something  to  say 
about  "Resurrection,"  v/hich  I  have  read  not  piece- 
meal, in  parts,  but  as  a  whole,  at  one  go.  It  is  a 
remarkable  artistic  production.  The  least  interest- 
ing part  is  all  that  is  said  of  Nehludov's  relations 


384  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

with  Katusha;  and  the  most  interesting  the  princes, 
the  generals,  the  aunts,  the  peasants,  the  convicts, 
the  warders.  The  scene  in  the  house  of  the  General 
in  command  of  the  Peter-Paul  Fortress,  the  spirit- 
ualist, I  read  with  a  throbbing  heart — it  is  so  good! 
And  Madame  Kortchagin  in  the  easy  chair;  and  the 
peasant,  the  husband  of  Fedosya !  The  peasant  calls 
his  grandmother  "an  artful  one."  That's  just  what 
Tolstoy's  pen  is — an  artful  one.  There's  no  end  to 
the  novel,  what  there  is  you  can't  call  an  end.  To 
write  and  write,  and  then  to  throw  the  whole  weight 
of  it  on  a  text  from  the  Gospel,  that  is  quite  in  the 
theological  style.  To  settle  it  all  by  a  text  from  the 
Gospel  is  as  arbitrary  as  dividing  the  convicts  into 
five  classes.  Why  into  five  and  not  into  ten?  He 
must  make  us  believe  in  the  Gospel,  in  its  being  the 
truth,  and  then  settle  it  all  by  texts. 

.  .  .  They  write  about  Tolstoy  as  old  women 
talk  about  a  crazy  saint,  all  sorts  of  unctuous 
nonsense;  it's  a  mistake  for  him  to  talk  to  those 
people.   .   .   . 

They  have  elected  Tolstoy  * — against  the  grain. 
According  to  notions  there,  he  is  a  Nihilist.  Any- 
way, that's  what  he  was  called  by  a  lady,  the  wife 
of  an  actual  privy  councillor,  and  I  heartily  congratu- 
late him  upon  it.   .   .   . 

To  L.  S.  MiziNOv. 

Yalta, 
January  29,  1900. 

Dear  Lika, 

They  have  written  to  me  that  you  have  grown 
very  fat  and  become  dignified,  and  I  did  not  expect 
that   you   would   remember  me   and  write   to   me. 

*  An  honorary  Academician. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  385 

But  you  have  remembered  me — and  thank  you  very 

much  for  it,  dear.     You  write  nothing  about  your 

health:  evidently  it's  not  bad,  and  I  am  glad.     I  hope 

your  mother  is  well  and  that  everything  is  going  on 

all  right.      I  am  nearly  well;  I  am  ill  from  time  to 

time,  but  not  often,  and  only  because  I  am  old — the 

bacilli  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.     And  when  I  see 

a  lovely  woman  now  I  smile  in  an  aged  way,  and  drop 

my  lower  lip — that's  all. 

****** 

Lika,  I  am  dreadfully  bored  in  Yalta.  My  life 
does  not  run  or  flow,  but  crawls  along.  Don't  forget 
me;  write  to  me  now  and  then,  anyway.  In  your 
letters  just  as  in  your  life  you  are  a  very  interesting 
woman.     I  press  your  hand  warmly. 


To  Gorky. 

Yalta, 
February  3,  1900. 

Dear  Alexey  Maximovitch, 

Thank  you  for  your  letter,  for  the  lines  about 
Tolstoy  and  about  "Uncle  Vanya,"  which  I  haven't 
seen  on  the  stage ;  thanks  altogether  for  not  forgetting 
me.  Here  in  this  blessed  Yalta  one  could  hardly 
keep  alive  without  letters.  The  idleness,  the  idiotic 
winter  with  the  temperature  always  above  freezing- 
point,  the  complete  absence  of  interesting  women,  the 
pig-faces  on  the  sea-front — all  this  may  spoil  a  man 
and  wear  him  out  in  a  very  short  time.  I  am  tired 
of  it;  it  seems  to  me  as  though  the  winter  had  been 
going  on  for  ten  years. 

You  have  pleurisy.     If  so,  why  do  you  stay  on  in 
Nizhni.     Why?     What    do    you    want    with    that 


386  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

Nizhni,  by  the  way?  What  glue  keeps  you  sticking 
to  that  town  ?  If  you  like  Moscow,  as  you  write,  why 
don't  you  live  in  Moscow?  In  Moscow  there  are 
theatres  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  and,  what  matters  most 
of  all,  Moscow  is  handy  for  going  abroad ;  while  living 
in  Nizhni  you'll  stick  in  Nizhni,  and  never  go  further 
than  Vasilsursk.  You  want  to  see  more,  to  know 
more,  to  have  a  wider  range.  Your  imagination  is 
quick  to  seize  and  hold,  but  it  is  like  a  big  oven  which 
is  not  provided  with  fuel  enough.  One  feels  this 
in  general,  and  in  particular  in  the  stories:  you  pre- 
sent two  or  three  figures  in  a  story,  but  these  figures 
stand  apart,  outside  the  mass;  one  sees  that  these 
figures  are  living  in  your  imagination,  but  only  these 
figures — the  mass  is  not  grasped.  I  except  from  this 
criticism  your  Crimean  things  (for  instance,  "My 
Travelling  Companion"),  in  which,  besides  the 
figures,  there  is  a  feeling  of  the  human  mass  out  of 
which  they  have  come,  and  atmosphere  and  back- 
ground— everything,  in  fact.  See  what  a  lecture  I 
am  giving  you — and  all  that  you  may  not  go  on  stay- 
ing in  Nizhni.  You  are  a  young  man,  strong  and 
tough ;  if  I  were  you  I  should  make  a  tour  in  India  and 
all  sorts  of  places.  I  would  take  my  degree  in  two  or 
more  faculties — I  would,  yes,  I  would!  You  laugh, 
but  I  do  feel  so  badly  treated  at  being  forty  already, 
at  having  asthma  and  all  sorts  of  horrid  things  which 
prevent  my  living  freely.  Anyway,  be  a  good  fellow 
and  a  good  comrade,  and  don't  be  angry  with  me  for 
preaching  at  you  like  a  head  priest. 

Write  to  me.  I  look  forward  to  "Foma  Gorde- 
yev,"  which  I  haven't  yet  read  properly. 

There  is  no  news.  Keep  well,  I  press  your  hand 
warmly. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  387 

To  0.  L.  Knipper. 

Yalta, 
February  10,  1900. 

Dear  Actress, 

The  winter  is  very  cold,  I  am  not  well,  no  one 
has  written  to  me  for  nearly  a  whole  month — and 
I  had  made  up  my  mind  that  there  was  nothing  left 
for  me  but  to  go  abroad,  where  it  is  not  so  dull;  but 
now  it  has  begun  to  be  warmer,  and  it's  better,  and 
I  have  decided  that  I  shall  go  abroad  only  at  the  end 
of  the  summer,  for  the  exhibition. 

And  you,  why  are  you  depressed?  What  are  you 
depressed  about?  You  are  living,  working,  hoping, 
drinking;  you  laugh  when  your  uncle  reads  aloud  to 
you — what  more  do  you  want?  I  am  a  different 
matter.  I  am  torn  up  by  the  roots,  I  am  not  living 
a  full  life,  I  don't  drink,  though  I  am  fond  of  drink- 
ing; I  love  noise  and  don't  hear  it — in  fact,  I  am  in 
the  condition  of  a  transplanted  tree  which  is  hesitat- 
ing whether  to  take  root  or  to  begin  to  wither.  If  I 
sometimes  allow  myself  to  complain  of  boredom,  I 
have  some  grounds  for  doing  so — but  you?  And 
Meierhold  is  complaining  of  the  dulness  of  his  life 
too.     Aie,  aie! 

By  the  way,  about  Meierhold — he  ought  to  spend 
the  whole  summer  in  the  Crimea.  His  health  needs 
it.      Only  it  must  be  for  the  whole  summer. 

Well,  now  I  am  all  right  again.  I  am  doing 
nothing  because  I  intend  to  set  to  work.  I  dig  in 
the  garden.  You  write  that  for  you,  little  people, 
the  future  is  wrapped  in  mystery.  I  had  a  letter 
from  your  chief  Nemirovitch  not  long  ago.  He 
writes  that  the  company  is  going  to  be  in  Sevastopol, 


388  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

then  in  Yalta  at  the  beginning  of  May:  in  Yalta  there 
will  be  five  performances,  then  evening  rehearsals. 
Only  the  precious  members  of  the  company  will 
remain  for  the  rehearsals,  the  others  can  have  a  holi- 
day where  they  please.  I  trust  that  you  are  precious. 
To  the  director  you  are  precious,  to  the  author  you 
are  priceless.  There  is  a  pun  for  a  titbit  for  you. 
I  won't  write  another  word  to  you  till  you  send  me 
your  portrait. 

Thank  you  for  your  good  wishes  in  regard  to  my 
marriage.  I  have  informed  my  fiancee  of  your 
design  of  coming  to  Yalta  in  order  to  cut  her  out  a 
little.  She  said  that  if  "that  horrid  woman" 
comes  to  Yalta,  she  will  hold  me  tight  in  her  embrace. 
I  observed  that  to  be  embraced  for  so  long  in  hot 
weather  was  not  hygienic.  She  was  offended  and 
grew  thoughtful,  as  though  she  were  trying  to  guess 
in  what  surroundings  I  had  picked  up  this  faqon  de 
parler,  and  after  a  little  while  said  that  the  theatre 
was  an  evil  and  that  my  intention  of  writing  no 
more  plays  was  extremely  laudable — and  asked 
me  to  kiss  her.  To  this  I  replied  that  it  was  not 
proper  for  me  to  be  so  free  with  my  kisses  now  that 
I  am  an  academician.  She  burst  into  tears,  and  I 
went  away. 

In  the  spring  the  company  will  be  in  Harkov  too. 
I  will  come  and  meet  you  then,  only  don't  talk  of 
that  to  anyone.  Nadyezhda  Ivanovna  has  gone  off 
to  Moscow. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  389 

To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Yalta, 
February  12,  1900. 

I  have  been  racking  my  brains  over  your  fourth  act, 
and  have  come  to  no  conclusion  except,  perhaps,  that 
you  must  not  end  it  up  with  NihiHsts.  It's  too  tur- 
bulent and  screaming;  a  quiet,  lyrical,  touching  end- 
ing would  be  more  in  keeping  with  your  play.  When 
your  heroine  begins  to  grow  old  without  arriving  at 
anything  or  deciding  anything  for  herself,  and  sees 
that  she  is  forsaken  by  all,  that  she  is  uninteresting 
and  superfluous,  when  she  understands  that  the  peo- 
ple around  her  were  idle,  useless,  bad  people  (her 
father  too) ,  and  that  she  has  let  her  life  slip — is  not 
that  more  dreadful  than  the  Nihilists? 

Your  letters  about  "The  Russalka"  and  Korsh  are 
very  good.  The  tone  is  brilliant,  and  they  are  won- 
derfully written.  But  about  Konovalov  and  the 
jury,  I  think  you  ought  not  to  have  written,  however 

alluring  the  subject.     Let  A 1  write  as  much  as 

he  likes  about  it,  but  not  you,  for  it  is  not  your  affair. 
To  treat  such  questions  boldly  and  with  conviction, 
one  must  be  a  man  with  a  single  purpose,  while  you 
would  go  off  at  a  tangent  halfway  through  the  letter 
— as  you  have  done — saying  suddenly  that  we  all 
sometimes  desire  to  kill  someone,  and  desire  the 
death  of  our  neighbours.  When  a  daughter-in-law 
feels  sick  and  tired  of  an  invalid  mother-in-law,  a 
spiteful  old  woman,  she,  the  daughter-in-law,  feels 
easier  at  the  thought  that  the  old  woman  will  soon 
die:  but  that's  not  desiring  her  death,  but  weariness, 
an  exhausted  spirit,  vexation,  longing  for  peace. 
If  that  daughter-in-law  were  ordered  to  kill  the  old 


390  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

woman,  she  would  sooner  kill  herself,  whatever  desire 
might  have  been  brooding  in  her  heart. 

Why,  of  course  jurymen  may  make  a  mistake,  but 
what  of  that?  It  does  happen  by  mistake  that  help  is 
given  to  the  well-fed  instead  of  to  the  hungry,  but 
whatever  you  write  on  that  subject,  you  will  reach 
no  result  but  harm  to  the  hungry.  Whether  from 
our  point  of  view  the  jury  are  mistaken  or  not  mis- 
taken, we  ought  to  recognize  that  in  each  individual 
case  they  form  a  conscious  judgment  and  make  an 
effort  to  do  so  conscientiously ;  and  if  a  captain  steers 
his  steamer  conscientiously,  continually  consulting 
the  chart  and  the  compass,  and  if  the  steamer  is  ship- 
wrecked all  the  same,  would  it  not  be  more  correct 
to  put  down  the  shipwreck  not  to  the  captain,  but  to 
something  else — for  instance,  to  think  that  the  chart 
is  out  of  date  or  that  the  bottom  of  the  sea  has 
changed?  Yes,  there  are  three  points  the  jury  have 
to  take  into  consideration:  (1)  Apart  from  the 
criminal  law,  the  penal  code  and  legal  procedure, 
there  is  a  moral  law  which  is  always  in  advance  of  the 
established  law,  and  which  defines  our  actions  pre- 
cisely when  we  try  to  act  on  our  conscience;  thus, 
for  instance,  the  heritage  of  a  daughter  is  laid  down 
by  law  as  a  seventh  part.  But  you,  acting  on  the 
dictates  of  purely  moral  principle,  go  beyond  the  law 
and  in  opposition  to  it,  and  bequeath  her  the  same 
share  as  your  sons,  for  you  know  that  to  act  other- 
wise would  be  acting  against  your  conscience.  In 
the  same  way  it  sometimes  happens  to  the  jury  to 
be  put  in  a  position  in  which  they  feel  that  their 
conscience  is  not  satisfied  by  the  established  law,  that 
in  the  case  they  are  judging  there  are  fine  shades  and 
subtleties  which  cannot  be  brought  under  the  pro- 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  391 

visions  of  the  penal  code,  and  that  obviously  some- 
thing else  is  needed  for  a  just  judgment,  and  that  for 
the  lack  of  that  "something"  they  will  be  forced  to 
give  a  judgment  in  which  something  is  lacking.  (2) 
The  jury  know  that  acquittal  is  not  pardon,  and  that 
acquittal  does  not  deliver  the  prisoner  from  the  day 
of  judgment  in  the  other  world,  from  the  judgment 
of  his  conscience,  from  the  judgment  of  public 
opinion;  they  decide  the  question  only  so  far  as  it  is 

a   judicial   question,   and   leave   A 1   to   decide 

whether  it  is  good  to  kill  children  or  bad.  (3)  The 
prisoner  comes  to  the  court  already  exhausted  by 
prison  and  examination,  and  he  is  in  an  agonizing 
position  at  his  trial,  so  that  even  if  he  is  acquitted  he 
does  not  leave  the  court  unpunished. 

Well,  be  that  as  it  may,  my  letter  is  almost  finished, 
and  I  seem  to  have  written  nothing.  We  have  the 
spring  here  in  Yalta,  no  news  of  interest.   .   .   . 

"Resurrection"  is  a  remarkable  novel.  I  liked  it 
very  much,  but  it  ought  to  be  read  straight  off  at 
one  sitting.  The  end  is  uninteresting  and  false — 
false  in  a  technical  sense. 

To  0.  L.  Knipper. 

Yalta, 
February  14,  1900. 

Dear  Actress, 

The  photographs  are  very,  very  good, 
especially  the  one  in  which  you  are  leaning  in  dejec- 
tion with  your  elbows  on  the  back  of  a  chair,  which 
gives  you  a  discreetly  mournful,  gentle  expression 
under  which  there  lies  hid  a  little  demon.  The  other 
is  good  too,  but  it  looks  a  little  like  a  Jewess,  a  very 
musical  person  who  attends  a  conservatoire,  but  at  the 


392  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

same  time  is  studying  dentistry  on  the  sly  as  a  second 
string,  and  is  engaged  to  be  married  to  a  young  man  in 

Mogilev,  and  whose  fiance  is  a  person  like  M . 

Are  you  angry?  Really,  really  angry?  It's  my 
revenge  for  your  not  signing  them. 

Of  the  seventy  roses  I  planted  in  the  autumn  only 
three  have  not  taken  root.  Lilies,  irises,  tulips, 
tuberoses,  hyacinths,  are  all  pushing  out  of  the 
gi'ound.  Tlie  willow  is  already  green.  By  the 
little  seat  in  the  corner  the  grass  is  luxuriant  already. 
The  almond-tree  is  in  blossom.  I  have  put  little 
seats  all  over  the  garden,  not  grand  ones  with  iron 
legs,  but  wooden  ones  which  I  paint  green.  I  have 
made  three  bridges  over  the  stream.  I  am  planting 
palms.  In  fact,  there  are  all  sorts  of  novelties,  so 
much  so  that  you  won't  know  the  house,  or  the  gar- 
den, or  the  street.  Only  the  owner  has  not  changed, 
he  is  just  the  same  moping  creature  and  devoted  wor- 
shipper of  the  talents  that  reside  at  Nikitsky  Gate.^ 
I  have  heard  no  music  nor  singing  since  the  autumn, 
I  have  not  seen  one  interesting  woman.  How  can  I 
help  being  melancholy? 

I  had  made  up  my  mind  not  to  write  to  you,  but 
since  you  have  sent  the  photographs  I  have  taken  oflF 
the  ban,  and  here  you  see  I  am  writing.  I  will  even 
come  to  Sevastopol,  only  I  repeat,  don't  tell  that  to 
anyone,  especially  not  to  Vishnevsky.  I  shall  be 
there  incognito,  I  shall  put  myself  down  in  the  hotel- 
book  Count  Blackphiz. 

I  was  joking  when  I  said  that  you  were  like  a 
Jewess  in  your  photograph.  Don't  be  angry, 
precious  one.  Well,  herewith  I  kiss  your  little  hand, 
and  remain  unalterably  yours. 

•  0.  L.  Knipper  was  living  at  Nikitsky  Gate. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  393 


To  Gorky. 

Yalta, 
February  15,  1900. 

Dear  Alexey  Maximovitch, 

Your  article  in  the  Nizhni-Novgorod  Listok 
was  balm  to  my  soul.  What  a  talented  person  you 
are!  I  can't  write  anything  but  belles-lettres,  you 
possess  the  pen  of  a  journalist  as  well.  I  thought  at 
first  I  liked  the  article  so  much  because  you  praise 
me  in  it;  afterwards  it  came  out  that  Sredin  and  his 
family  and  Yartsev  were  all  delighted  with  it.  So 
peg  away  at  journalism.     God  bless  you ! 

Why  don't  they  send  me  "Foma  Gordeyev"?  I 
have  read  it  only  in  bits,  and  one  ought  to  read  it 
straight  through  at  a  sitting  as  I  have  just  read 
"Resurrection."  Except  the  relations  of  Nehludov 
and  Katusha,  which  are  somewhat  obscure  and  made 
up,  everything  in  the  novel  made  the  impression  of 
strength,  richness,  and  breadth,  and  the  insincerity 
of  a  man  afraid  of  death  and  refusing  to  admit  it  and 
clutching  at  texts  and  holy  Scripture. 

Write  to  them  to  send  me  "Foma. 

"Twenty-six  Men  and  a  Girl"  is  a  good  story. 
There  is  a  strong  feeling  of  the  environment.     One 


5? 


smells  the  hot  rolls. 

They  have  just  brought  your  letter.  So  you  don't 
want  to  go  to  India?  That's  a  pity.  When  India 
is  in  the  past,  a  long  sea  voyage,  you  have  something 
to  think  about  when  you  can't  get  to  sleep.  And  a 
tour  abroad  takes  very  little  time,  it  need  not  prevent 
your  going  about  in  Russia  on  foot. 

I  am  bored,  not  in  the  sense  of  weltschmerz,  not 
in  the  sense  of  being  weary  of  existence,  but  simply 


394  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

bored  from  want  of  people,  from  want  of  music  which 
I  love,  and  from  want  of  women,  of  whom  there  are 
none  in  Yalta.  I  am  bored  without  caviare  and 
pickled  cabbage. 

I  am  very  sorry  that  apparently  you  have  given  up 
the  idea  of  coming  to  Yalta.  The  Art  Theatre  from 
Moscow  will  be  here  in  May.  It  will  give  five  per- 
formances and  then  remain  for  rehearsals.  So  you 
come,  study  the  stage  at  the  rehearsals,  and  then  in 
five  to  eight  days  write  a  play,  which  I  should  welcome 
joyfully  with  my  whole  heart. 

Yes,  I  have  the  right  now  to  insist  on  the  fact  that 
I  am  forty,  that  I  am  a  man  no  longer  young.  I  used 
to  be  the  youngest  literary  man,  but  you  have  ap- 
peared on  the  scene  and  I  became  more  dignified  at 
once,  and  no  one  calls  me  the  youngest  now. 

To  V.  A.  Posse. 

Yalta, 
February  15,  1900. 

Much  respected  Vladimir  Alexandrovitch, 
"Foma  Gordeyev"  and  in  a  superb  binding 
too  is  a  precious  and  touching  present;  I  thank  you 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart.  A  thousand  thanks! 
I  have  read  "Foma"  only  in  bits,  now  I  shall  read 
it  properly.  Gorky  should  not  be  published  in  parts ; 
either  he  must  write  more  briefly,  or  you  must  put 
him  in  whole  as  the  Vyestnik  Evropy  does  with 
Boborykin.  "Foma,"  by  the  way,  is  very  successful, 
but  only  with  intelligent  well-read  people — with  the 
young  also.  I  once  overheard  in  a  garden  the  con- 
versation of  a  lady  (from  Petersburg)  with  her  daugh- 
ter: the  mother  was  abusing  the  book,  the  daughter 
was  praising  it.   .   .   . 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  395 


Yalta, 
February  29,  1900. 


'(1 


Toma  Gordeyev"  is  written  all  in  one  tone  like 
a  dissertation.  All  the  characters  speak  alike,  and 
their  way  of  thinking  is  ahke  too.  They  all  speak 
not  simply  but  intentionally;  they  all  have  some  idea 
in  the  background ;  as  though  there  is  something  they 
know  they  don't  speak  out:  but  in  reality  there  is 
nothing  they  know,  and  it  is  simply  their  faqon  de 
parler. 

There  are  wonderful  passages  in  "Foma."  Gorky 
will  make  a  very  great  writer  if  only  he  does  not 
weary,  does  not  grow  cold  and  lazy. 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Yalta, 
March  10,  1900. 

No  winter  has  ever  dragged  on  so  long  for  me  as 
this  one,  and  time  merely  drags  and  does  not  move, 
and  now  I  realize  how  stupid  it  was  of  me  to  leave 
Moscow.  I  have  lost  touch  with  the  north  without 
getting  into  touch  with  the  south,  and  one  can  think 
of  nothing  in  my  position  but  to  go  abroad.  After 
the  spring,  winter  has  begun  here  again  in  Yalta — 
snow,  rain,  cold,  mud — simply  disgusting. 

The  Moscow  Art  Theatre  will  be  in  Yalta  in  April ; 
it  will  bring  its  scenery  and  decorations.  All  the 
tickets  for  the  four  days  advertised  were  sold  in  one 
day,  although  the  prices  have  been  considerably 
raised.  They  will  give  among  other  things  Haupt- 
mann's  "Lonely  Lives,"  a  magnificent  play  in  my 
opinion.     I  read  it  with  great  pleasure,  although  I 


396  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

am  not  fond  of  plays,  and  the  production  at  the  Art 
Theatre  they  say  is  marvellous. 

There  is  no  news.  There  is  one  great  event, 
though:  N.'s  "Socrates"  is  printed  in  the  ISeva  Sup- 
plement. I  have  read  it,  but  with  great  effort.  It  is 
not  Socrates  but  a  dull-witted,  captious,  opinionated 
man,  the  whole  of  whose  wisdom  and  interest  is  con- 
fined to  tripping  people  up  over  words.  There  is 
not  a  trace  or  vestige  of  talent  in  it,  but  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  the  play  might  be  successful  because  there 
are  words  in  it  such  as  ''amphora,"  and  Karpov  says 
it  would  stage  well. 

How  many  consumptives  there  are  here!  What 
poverty,  and  how  worried  one  is  with  them!  The 
hotels  and  lodging-houses  here  won't  take  in 
those  who  are  seriously  ill.  You  can  imagine 
the  awful  cases  that  may  be  seen  here.  People 
are  dying  from  exhaustion,  from  their  surround- 
ings, from  complete  neglect,  and  this  in  blessed 
Taurida ! 

One  loses  all  relish  for  the  sun  and  the  sea.   .   .  , 


To  0.  L.  Knipper. 

Yalta, 
March  26,  1900. 

There  is  a  feeling  of  black  melancholy  about  your 
letter,  dear  actress ;  you  are  gloomy,  you  are  fearfully 
unhappy — but  not  for  long,  one  may  imagine,  as 
soon,  very  soon,  you  will  be  sitting  in  the  train,  eating 
your  lunch  with  a  very  good  appetite.  It  is  very  nice 
that  you  are  coming  first  with  Masha  before  all  the 
others;  we  shall  at  least  have  time  to  talk  a  little. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  397 

walk  a  little,  see  things,  drink  and  eat.  But  please 
don't  bring  with  you  .   .   . 

I  haven't  a  new  play,  it's  a  lie  of  the  newspapers. 
The  newspapers  never  do  tell  the  truth  about  me. 
If  I  did  begin  a  play,  of  course  the  first  thing  I  should 
do  would  be  to  inform  you  of  the  fact. 

There  is  a  great  wind  here;  the  spring  has  not  be- 
gun properly  yet,  but  we  go  about  without  our 
goloshes  and  fur  caps.  The  tulips  will  soon  be  out. 
I  have  a  nice  garden  but  it  is  untidy,  moss-grown — a 
dilettante  garden. 

Gorky  is  here.  He  is  warm  in  his  praises  of  you 
and  your  theatre.     I  will  introduce  you  to  him. 

Oh  dear!  Someone  has  arrived.  A  visitor  has 
come  in.     Good-bye  for  now,  actress ! 


To  HIS  Sister. 

Yalta, 
March  26,  1900. 

Dear  Masha, 

.  .  .  There  is  no  news,  there  is  no  water  in 
the  pipes  either.  I  an;  sick  to  death  of  visitors.  Yes- 
terday, March  25,  they  came  in  an  incessant  stream 
all  day;  doctors  keep  sending  people  from  Moscow 
and  the  provinces  ^vith  letters  asking  me  to  find  lodg- 
ings, to  "make  arrangements,"  as  though  I  were  a 
house-agent!  Mother  is  well.  Mind  you  keep  well 
too,  and  make  haste  and  come  home. 


398  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


To  0.  L.  Knipper. 

Yalta, 
May  20,  1900. 

Greetings  to  you,  dear  enchanting  actress!  How 
are  you?  How  are  you  feeling?  I  was  very  unwell 
on  the  way  back  to  Yalta.*  I  had  a  bad  headache 
and  temperature  before  I  left  Moscow.  I  was  wicked 
enough  to  conceal  it  from  you,  now  I  am  all  right. 

How  is  Levitan  ?  I  feel  dreadfully  worried  at  not 
knowing.     If  you  have  heard,  please  write  to  me. 

Keep  well  and  be  happy.  I  heard  Masha  was 
sending  you  a  letter,  and  so  I  hasten  to  write  these 
few  lines. t 


To  HIS  Sister. 

Yalta, 
September  9,  1900. 

Dear  Masha, 

I  answer  the  letter  in  which  you  write  about 
Mother.  To  my  thinking  it  would  be  better  for  her 
to  go  to  Moscow  now  in  the  autumn  and  not  after 
December.  She  will  be  tired  of  Moscow  and  pining 
for  Yalta  in  a  month,  you  know,  and  if  you  take  her 
to  Moscow  in  the  autumn  she  will  be  back  in  Yalta 
before  Christmas.  That's  how  it  seems  to  me, 
but  possibly  I  am  mistaken;  in  any  case  you  must 
take  into  consideration  that  it  is  much  drearier  in 

*  Chekhov  went  to  Moscow  with  the  Art  Theatre  Company  on 
their  return  from  Yalta. 

t  Chekhov's  later  letters  to  0.  L.  Knipper  have  not  been  pub- 
lished. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  399 

Yalta  before  Christmas  than  it  is  after- — infinitely 
drearier. 

Most  hkely  I  will  be  in  Moscow  after  the  20th  of 
September,  and  then  we  will  decide.  From  Moscow 
I  shall  go  I  don't  know  where — first  to  Paris,  and 
then  probably  to  Nice,  from  Nice  to  Africa.  I  shall 
hang  on  somehow  to  the  spring,  all  April  or  May, 
when  I  shall  come  to  Moscow  again. 

There  is  no  news.  There's  no  rain  either,  every- 
thing is  dried  up.  At  home  here  it  is  quiet,  peaceful, 
satisfactory,  and  of  course  dull. 

"Three  Sisters"  is  very  difficult  to  write,  more  dif- 
ficult than  my  other  plays.  Oh  well,  it  doesn't  mat- 
ter, perhaps  something  will  come  of  it,  next  season 
if  not  this.  It's  very  hard  to  write  in  Yalta,  by  the 
way:  I  am  interrupted,  and  I  feel  as  though  I  had  no 
object  in  writing;  what  I  wrote  yesterday  I  don't  like 
to-day.   .  .  . 

Well,  take  care  of  yourself. 

My  humblest  greetings  to  Olga  Leonardovna,  to 
Vishnevsky,  and  all  the  rest  of  them  too. 

If  Gorky  is  in  Moscow,  tell  him  that  I  have  sent  a 
letter  to  him  in  Nizhni-Novgorod. 


To  Gorky. 


Yalta, 
October  16,  1900. 


Dear  Alexey  Maximovitch, 

...  On  the  21st  of  this  month  I  am  going  to 
Moscow,  and  from  there  abroad.  Can  you  imagine 
— I  have  written  a  play ;  but  as  it  will  be  produced  not 


400  LETTERS  OF  CHEICHOV 

now,  but  next  season,  I  have  not  made  a  fair  copy 
of  it  yet.  It  can  lie  as  it  is.  It  was  very  difficult 
to  write  "Three  Sisters."  Three  heroines,  you  see, 
each  a  separate  type  and  all  the  daughters  of  a 
general.  The  action  is  laid  in  a  provincial  town, 
as  it  might  be  Perm,  the  surroundings  military, 
artillery. 

The  weather  in  Yalta  is  exquisite  and  fresh,  my 
health  is  improving.  I  don't  even  want  to  go  away 
to  Moscow.  I  am  working  so  well,  and  it  is  so  pleas- 
ant to  be  free  from  the  irritation  I  suffered  from  all  the 
summer.  I  am  not  coughing,  and  am  even  eating 
meat.  I  am  living  alone,  quite  alone.  My  mother 
is  in  Moscow. 

Thanks  for  your  letters,  my  dear  fellow,  thanks 
very  much.  I  read  them  over  twice.  My  warmest 
greetings  to  your  wife  and  Maxim.  And  so,  till  we 
meet  in  Moscow.  I  hope  you  won't  play  me  false, 
and  we  shall  see  each  other. 

God  keep  you. 

Moscow, 
October  22,  1901. 

Five  days  have  passed  since  I  read  your  play 
("The  Petty  Bourgeois").  I  have  not  written  to 
you  till  now  because  I  could  not  get  hold  of  the 
fourth  act;  I  have  kept  waiting  for  it,  and — I  still 
have  not  got  it.  And  so  I  have  only  read  three  acts, 
but  that  I  think  is  enough  to  judge  of  the  play.  It 
is,  as  I  expected,  very  good,  written  a  la  Gorky, 
original,  very  interesting;  and,  to  begin  by  talking 
of  the  defects,  I  have  noticed  only  one,  a  defect 
incorrigible  as  red  hair  in  a  red-haired  man — the 
conserv^atism    of   the    form.     You    make   new   and 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  401 

original  people  sing  new  songs  to  an  accompani- 
ment that  looks  second-hand,  you  have  four  acts, 
the  characters  deliver  edifying  discourses,  there  is 
a  feeling  of  alarm  before  long  speeches,  and  so  on, 
and  so  on.  But  all  that  is  not  important,  and  it  is 
all,  so  to  speak,  drowned  in  the  good  points  of  the 
play.  Pertchihin — how  living!  His  daughter  is 
enchanting,  Tatyana  and  Pyotr  are  also,  and  their 
mother  is  a  splendid  old  woman.  The  central  figure 
of  the  play,  Nil,  is  vigorously  drawn  and  extremely 
interesting!  In  fact,  the  play  takes  hold  of  one 
from  the  first  act.  Only  God  preserve  you  from  let- 
ting anyone  act  Pertchihin  except  Artyom,  while 
Alexeyev-Stanislavsky  must  certainly  play  Nil. 
Those  two  figures  will  do  just  what's  needed;  Pyotr 
— Meierhold.  Only  Nil's  part,  a  wonderful  part, 
must  be  made  two  or  three  times  as  long.  You  ought 
to  end  the  play  with  it,  to  make  it  the  leading  part. 
Only  do  not  contrast  him  with  Pyotr  and  Tatyana, 
let  him  be  by  himself  and  them  by  themselves,  all 
wonderful,  splendid  people  independently  of  each 
other.  When  Nil  tries  to  seem  superior  to  Pyotr  and 
Tatyana,  and  says  of  himself  that  he  is  a  fine  fellow^ 
the  element  so  characteristic  of  our  decent  working 
man,  the  element  of  modesty,  is  lost.  He  boasts,  he 
argues,  but  you  know  one  can  see  what  sort  of  man 
he  is  without  that.  Let  him  be  merry,  let  him  play 
pranks  through  the  whole  four  acts,  let  him  eat  a 
great  deal  after  his  work — and  that  will  be  enough 
for  him  to  conquer  the  audience  with.  Pyotr,  I  re- 
peat, is  good.  Most  likely  you  don't  even  suspect 
how  good  he  is.  Tatyana,  too,  is  a  finished  figure, 
onlv  (a)  she  ought  really  to  be  a  schoolmistress^ 
ought  to  be  teaching  children,  ought  to  come  home 


402  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

from  school,  ought  to  be  taken  up  with  her  pupils 
and  exercise-books,  and  (6)  it  ought  to  be  mentioned 
in  the  first  or  second  act  that  she  has  attempted  to 
poison  herself;  then,  after  that  hint,  the  poisoning 
in  the  third  act  will  not  seem  so  startling  and  will 
be  more  in  place.  Teterev  talks  too  much:  such 
characters  ought  to  be  shown  bit  by  bit  between 
others,  for  in  any  case  such  people  are  everywhere 
merely  incidental — both  in  life  and  on  the  stage. 
Make  Elena  dine  with  all  the  rest  in  the  first  act,  let 
her  sit  and  make  jokes,  or  else  there  is  very  little  of 
her,  and  she  is  not  clear.  Her  avowal  to  Pyotr  is  too 
abrupt,  on  the  stage  it  would  come  out  in  too  high 
relief.  Make  her  a  passionate  woman,  if  not  loving 
at  least  apt  to  fall  in  love.   .   .   . 

July  29,  1902. 

I  have  read  your  play.*  It  is  new  and  unmistak- 
ably fine.  The  second  act  is  very  good,  it  is  the  best, 
the  strongest,  and  when  I  was  reading  it,  especially 
the  end,  I  almost  danced  with  joy.  The  tone  is 
gloomy,  oppressive;  the  audience  unaccustomed  to 
such  subjects  will  walk  out  of  the  theatre,  and  you 
may  well  say  good-bye  to  your  reputation  as  an 
optimist  in  any  case.  My  wife  will  play  Vassilisa, 
the  immoral  and  spiteful  woman;  Vishnevsky  walks 
about  the  house  and  imagines  himself  the  Tatar — 
he  is  convinced  that  it  is  the  part  for  him.  Luka, 
alas!  you  must  not  give  to  Artyom.  He  will  repeat 
himself  in  that  part  and  be  exhausted ;  but  he  would 
do  the  policeman  wonderfully,  it  is  his  part.  The 
part  of  the  actor,  in  which  you  have  been  very  suc- 
cessful (it  is  a  magnificent  part),  should  be  given  to 

♦  "In  the  Depths." 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  403 

an  experienced  actor,  Stanislavsky  perhaps.     Katch- 
alev  will  play  the  baron. 

You  have  left  out  of  the  fourth  act  all  the  most 
interesting  characters  (except  the  actor),  and  you 
must  mind  now  that  there  is  no  ill  effect  from  it. 
The  act  may  seem  boring  and  unnecessary,  especially 
if,  with  the  exit  of  the  strongest  and  most  interesting 
actors,  there  are  left  only  the  mediocrities.  The 
death  of  the  actor  is  awful ;  it  is  as  though  you  gave  the 
spectator  a  sudden  box  on  the  ear  apropos  of  nothing 
without  preparing  him  in  any  way.  How  the  baron 
got  into  the  doss-house  and  why  he  is  a  baron  is  also 
not  sufficiently  clear. 

Vr  77  W  W  7P  w 

Andreyev's  "Thought"  is  something  pretentious, 
difficult  to  understand,  and  apparently  no  good,  but 
it  is  worked  out  with  talent.  Andreyev  has  no  sim- 
plicity, and  his  talent  reminds  me  of  an  artificial  night- 
ingale. Skitalets  now  is  a  sparrow,  but  he  is  a  real 
living  sparrow.   .   .   . 


To  S.  P.  Dyagilev. 

Yalta, 
December  30,  1902. 

.  .  .  You  write  that  we  talked  of  a  serious 
religious  movement  in  Russia.  We  talked  of  a 
movement  not  in  Russia  but  in  the  intellectual 
class.  I  won't  say  anything  about  Russia;  the  in- 
tellectuals so  far  are  only  playing  at  religion,  and  for 
the  most  part  from  having  nothing  to  do.  One  may 
say  of  the  cultured  part  of  our  public  that  it  has 


404  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

moved  away  from  religion,  and  is  moving  further  and 
further  away  from  it,  whatever  people  may  say  and 
however  many  philosophical  and  religious  societies 
may  be  formed.  Whether  it  is  a  good  or  a  bad  thing 
I  cannot  undertake  to  decide;  I  will  only  say  that 
the  religious  movement  of  which  you  write  is  one 
thing,  and  the  whole  trend  of  modem  culture  is  an- 
other, and  one  cannot  place  the  second  in  any  causal 
connection  with  the  first.  Modern  culture  is  only  the 
first  beginning  of  work  for  a  great  future,  work  which 
will  perhaps  go  on  for  tens  of  thousands  of  years, 
in  order  that  man  may  if  only  in  the  remote  future 
come  to  know  the  truth  of  the  real  God — that  is  not, 
I  conjecture,  by  seeking  in  Dostoevsky,  but  by  clear 
knowledge,  as  one  knows  twice  two  are  four.  Mod- 
ern culture  is  the  first  beginning  of  the  work,  while 
the  religious  movement  of  which  we  talked  is  a  sur- 
vival, almost  the  end  of  what  has  ceased,  or  is  ceasing 
tG  exist.  But  it  is  a  long  story,  one  can't  put  it  all 
into  a  letter.   .   .   . 


To  A.  S.  SuvoRiN. 

Moscow, 
June  29,  1903. 

.  .  .  One  feels  a  warm  sympathy,  of  course,  for 
Gorky's  letter  about  the  Kishinev  pogrom,  as  one  does 
for  everything  he  writes;  the  letter  is  not  written 
though,  but  put  together,  there  is  neither  youthful- 
ness  in  it  nor  confidence,  like  Tolstoy's. 

^  *  *  *  *  * 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  405 

July  1,  1903. 

You  are  reading  belles-lettres  now,  so  read 
Veresaev's  stories.  Begin  with  a  little  story  in  the 
second  volume  called  "Lizar."  I  think  you  will  be 
very  much  pleased  with  it.  Veresaev  is  a  doctor;  I 
have  got  to  know  him  lately.  He  makes  a  very  good 
impression.  ... 


To  S.  P.  Dyagilev. 

Yalta, 
July  12,  1903. 

...  I  have  been  thinking  over  your  letter  for  a 
long  time,  and  alluring  as  your  suggestion  or  offer 
is,  yet  in  the  end  I  must  answer  it  as  neither  you  nor 
I  would  wish. 

I  cannot  be  the  editor  of  The  World  of  Art,  as  I 
cannot  live  in  Petersburg,  .  .  .  that's  the  first  point. 
And  the  second  is  that  just  as  a  picture  must  be  painted 
by  one  artist  and  a  speech  delivered  by  one  orator, 
so  a  magazine  must  be  edited  by  one  man.  Of  course 
I  am  not  a  critic,  and  I  dare  say  I  shouldn't  make  a 
very  good  job  of  the  reviews;  but  on  the  other  hand, 
how  could  I  get  on  in  the  same  boat  with  Merezhkov- 
sky,  who  definitely  believes,  didactically  believes, 
while  I  lost  my  faith  years  ago  and  can  only  look  with 
perplexity  at  any  "intellectual"  who  does  believe?  I 
respect  Merezhkovsky,  and  think  highly  of  him  both 
as  a  man  and  as  a  writer,  but  we  should  be  pulling  in 
opposite  directions.   .   .   . 

Don't  be  cross  with  me,  dear  Sergey  Pavlovitch: 
it  seems  to  me  that  if  you  go  on  editing  the  magazine 


406  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV       . 

for  another  five  years  you  will  come  to  agree  with 
me.  A  magazine,  like  a  picture  or  a  poem,  must  bear 
the  stamp  of  one  personality  and  one  will  must  be 
felt  in  it.  This  has  been  hitherto  the  case  in  the 
World  of  Art,  and  it  was  a  good  thing.  And  it  must 
be  kept  up.  .  .  . 


To  K.  S.  Stanislavsky. 

Yalta, 
July  28,  1903. 

.  .  .  My  play  "The  Cherry  Orchard"  is  not  yet 
finished;  it  makes  slow  progress,  which  I  put  down 
to  laziness,  fine  weather,  and  the  difficulty  of  the  sub- 

IC/v/L*      •      •      • 

I  think  your  part  *  is  all  right,  though  I  can't  un- 
dertake to  decide,  as  I  can  judge  very  little  of  a  play 
by  reading  it.   .   .   . 


To  Madame  Stanislavsky. 

Yalta, 

September  15,  1903. 

.  .  .  Don't  believe  anybody — no  living  soul  has 
read  my  play  yet;  I  have  written  for  you  not  the 
part  of  a  "canting  hypocrite,"  but  of  a  very  nice 
girl,  with  which  you  will,  I  hope,  be  satisfied.  I 
have  almost  finished  the  play,  but  eight  or  ten  days 
ago  I  was  taken  ill,  with  coughing  and  weakness — 
in  fact,  last  year's  business  over  again.  Now — that 
is  to-day — it  is  warmer  and  I  feel  better,  but  still  I 

*  Stanislavsky  acted  Lopahin. — Translator's  Note. 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  407 

cannot  write,  as  my  head  is  aching.  Olga  will  not 
bring  the  play;  I  will  send  the  four  acts  together  as 
soon  as  it  is  possible  for  me  to  set  to  work  for  a  whole 
day.  It  has  turned  out  not  a  drama,  but  a  comedy, 
in  parts  a  farce,  indeed,  and  I  am  afraid  I  shall  catch 
it  from  Vladimir  Ivanitch  ^.   .  .   . 

I  can't  come  for  the  opening  of  your  season,  I  must 
stay  in  Yalta  till  November.  Olga,  who  has  grown 
fatter  and  stronger  in  the  summer,  will  probably 
come  to  Moscow  on  Sunday.  I  shall  remain  alone, 
and  of  course  shall  take  advantage  of  that.  As  a 
writer  it  is  essential  for  me  to  observe  women,  to 
study  them,  and  so,  I  regret  to  say,  I  cannot  be  a 
faithful  husband.  As  I  observe  women  chiefly  for 
the  sake  of  my  plays,  in  my  opinion  the  Art  Theatre 
ought  to  increase  my  wife's  salary  or  give  her  a  pen- 
sion!  .   .   . 


To  K.  S.  Stanislavsky. 

Yalta, 
October  30,  1903. 

.  .  .  Many  thanks  for  your  letter  and  telegram. 
Letters  are  very  precious  to  me  now — in  the  first 
place,  because  I  am  utterly  alone  here;  and  in  the 
second,  because  I  sent  the  play  three  weeks  ago  and 
only  got  your  letter  yesterday,  and  if  it  were  not 
for  my  wife,  I  should  know  nothing  at  all  and  might 
imagine  any  mortal  thing.  When  I  was  writing 
Lopahin,  I  thought  of  it  as  a  part  for  you.  If  for  any 
reason  you  don't  care  for  it,  take  the  part  of  Gaev. 
Lopahin  is  a  merchant,  of  course,  but  he  is  a  very 

*  Nemirovitch  Dantclienko. 


408  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

decent  person  in  every  sense.  He  must  behave  with 
perfect  decorum,  like  an  educated  man,  with  no 
petty  ways  or  tricks  of  any  sort,  and  it  seemed  to 
me  this  part,  the  central  one  of  the  play,  would  come 
out  brilliantly  in  your  hands.  ...  In  choosing  an 
actor  for  the  part  you  must  remember  that  Varya, 
a  serious  and  religious  girl,  is  in  love  with  Lopahin; 
she  wouldn't  be  in  love  with  a  mere  money-grub- 
ber. .  .   . 


To  V.  I.  Nemirovitch  Dantchenko. 

Yalta, 
November  2,  1903. 

.   .   .  About  the  play. 

1.  Anya  can  be  played  by  anyone  you  like,  even 
by  a  quite  unknown  actress,  so  long  as  she  is  young 
and  looks  like  a  girl,  and  speaks  in  a  youthful  singing 
voice.     It  is  not  an  important  part. 

(2)  Varya  is  a  more  serious  part.  .  .  .  She  is  a 
character  in  a  black  dress,  something  of  a  nun,  fool- 
ish, tearful,  etc. 

.  .  .  Gorky  is  younger  than  you  or  I,  he  has  his 
life  before  him.  ...  As  for  the  Nizhni  theatre, 
that's  a  mere  episode;  Gorky  will  try  it,  "sniff  it  and 
reject  it."  And  while  we  are  on  this  subject,  the 
whole  idea  of  a  "people's"  theatre  and  "people's" 
literature  is  foolishness  and  lollipops  for  the  people. 
We  mustn't  bring  Gogol  down  to  the  people  but  raise 
the  people  up  to  Gogol.  .  .  . 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  409 


To  A.  L.  Vishnevsky. 

Yalta, 

November  7,  1903. 

.  .  .  As  I  am  soon  coming  to  Moscow,  please  keep 
a  ticket  for  me  for  "The  Pillars  of  Society";  I  want 
to  see  the  marvellous  Norwegian  acting,  and  I  will 
even  pay  for  my  seat.  You  know  Ibsen  is  my  fav- 
ourite writer.   .   .   . 


To  K.  S.  Stanislavsky. 

Yalta, 

November  10,  1903. 

Dear  Konstantin  Sergeyitch, 

Of  course  the  scener}^  for  HI.  and  IV.  can  be 
the  same,  the  hall  and  the  staircase.  Please  do  just 
as  you  like  about  the  scenery,  I  leave  it  entirely  to 
you;  I  am  amazed  and  generally  sit  with  my  mouth 
wide  open  at  your  theatre.  There  can  be  no  question 
about  it,  whatever  you  do  will  be  excellent,  a  hundred 
times  better  than  anything  I  could  invent.   .   .   . 


To  F.  D.  Batyushkov. 

Moscow, 
January  19,  1904. 

...  At  the  first  performance  of  "The  Cherry 
Orchard"  on  the  17th  of  January,  they  gave  me  an 
ovation,  so  lavish,  warm,  and  really  so  unexpected, 
that  I  can't  get  over  it  even  now.  .  .  . 


410  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 


^«-!W5«V.  '^,, 


To  Madame  Avilov. 

Moscow, 
February  14,  1904. 

.  .  .  All  good  wishes.  Above  all,  be  cheerful; 
don't  look  at  life  so  much  as  a  problem — it  is,  most 
likely,  far  simpler.  And  whether  it — life,  of  which 
we  know  nothing — is  worth  all  the  agonizing  reflec- 
tions which  wear  out  our  Russian  wits,  is  a  question. 


To  Father  Sergey  Shtchukin. 

Moscow, 
May  27,  1904. 

Dear  Father  Sergey, 

Yesterday  I  talked  to  a  very  well-known 
lawyer  about  the  case  in  which  you  are  interested, 
and  I  will  tell  you  his  opinion.  Let  Mr.  N.  imme- 
diately put  together  all  the  necessary  documents,  let 
his  fiancee  do  the  same,  and  go  off  to  another  prov- 
ince, such  as  Kherson,  and  there  get  married.  When 
they  are  married  let  them  come  home  and  live 
quietly,  saying  nothing  about  it.  It  is  not  a  crime 
(there  is  no  consanguinity),  but  only  a  breach  of  a 
Ions  established  tradition.  If  in  another  two  or 
three  years  someone  informs  against  them,  or  finds 
out  and  interferes,  and  the  case  is  brought  into  court, 
anyway  the  children  would  be  legitimate.  And 
when  there  is  a  lawsuit  (a  trivial  one  anyway),  then 
they  can  send  in  a  petition  to  the  Sovereign.  The 
Sovereign  does  not  sanction  what  is  forbidden  by  law 
(so  it  is  no  use  to  petition  for  permission  for  the 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  411 

marriage),  but  the  Sovereign  enjoys  the  fullest 
privilege  of  pardon  and  does  as  a  rule  pardon  what  is 
inevitable. 

I  don't  know  whether  I  am  putting  it  properly. 
You  must  forgive  me,  I  am  in  bed,  ill,  and  have  been 
since  the  second  of  May,  I  have  not  been  able  to 
get  up  once  all  this  time.  I  cannot  execute  your 
other  commissions.   .   .   . 


To  HIS  Sister. 

Berlin, 
Sunday,  June  6,  1904. 

...  I  write  to  you  from  Berlin,  where  I  have 
been  now  for  twenty-four  hours.  It  turned  very  cold 
in  Moscow  after  you  went  away;  we  had  snow,  and 
it  was  most  likely  through  that  that  I  caught  cold. 
I  began  to  have  rheumatic  pains  in  my  arms  and  legs, 
I  did  not  sleep  for  nights,  got  very  thin,  had  injec- 
tions of  morphia,  took  thousands  of  medicines  of  all 
sorts,  and  remember  none  of  them  with  gratitude  ex- 
cept heroin,  which  was  once  prescribed  me  by 
Altschuller.   .   .   . 

On  Thursday  I  set  off  for  foreign  parts,  very  thin, 
with  very  lean  skinny  legs.  We  had  a  good  and 
pleasant  journey.  Here  in  Berlin  we  have  taken  a 
comfortable  room  in  the  best  hotel.  I  am  enjoying 
being  here,  and  it  is  a  long  time  since  I  have  eaten  so 
well,  with  such  appetite.  The  bread  here  is  won- 
derful, I  eat  too  much  of  it.  The  coffee  is  excellent 
and  the  dinners  beyond  description.  Anyone  who 
has  not  been  abroad  does  not  know  what  good  bread 
means.     There  is  no  decent  tea  here  (we  have  our 


412  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

own),  there  are  no  hors  d'oeuvres,  but  all  the  rest  is 
magnificent,  though  cheaper  than  with  us.  I  am  al- 
ready the  better  for  it,  and  to-day  I  even  took  a  long 
drive  in  the  Thiergarten,  though  it  was  cool.  And 
so  tell  Mother  and  everyone  who  is  interested  that  I 
am  getting  better,  or  indeed  have  already  got  better; 
my  legs  no  longer  ache,  I  have  no  diarrhoea,  I  am 
beginning  to  get  fat,  and  am  all  day  long  on  my  legs, 
not  lying  down.  .  .  . 

Berun, 
June  8. 

.  .  .  The  worst  thing  here  which  catches  the  eye 
at  once  is  the  dress  of  the  ladies.  Fearfully  bad 
taste,  nowhere  do  women  dress  so  abominably,  with 
such  utter  lack  of  taste.  I  have  not  seen  one  beau- 
tiful woman,  nor  one  who  was  not  trimmed  with  some 
kind  of  absurd  braid.  Now  I  understand  why  taste 
is  so  slowly  developed  in  Germans  in  Moscow.  On 
the  other  hand,  here  in  Berlin  life  is  very  comfortable. 
The  food  is  good,  things  are  not  dear,  the  horses  are 
well  fed — the  dogs,  who  are  here  harnessed  to  little 
carts,  are  well  fed  too.  There  is  order  and  cleanli- 
ness in  the  streets.   .   .   . 

Badenweiler, 

June  12. 

I  have  been  for  three  days  settled  here,  this 
is  my  address — Germany,  Badenweiler,  Villa  Freder- 
icke.  This  Villa  Fredericke,  like  all  the  houses  and 
villas  here,  stands  apart  in  a  luxuriant  garden  in 
the  sun,  which  shines  and  warms  us  till  seven  o'clock 
in  the  evening  (after  which  I  go  indoors).  We  are 
boarding  in  the  house;  for  fourteen  or  sixteen  marks 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  413 

a  day  we  have  a  double  room  flooded  with  sunshine, 
with  washing-stands,  bedsteads,  etc.,  with  a  writing- 
table,  and,  best  of  all,  with  excellent  water,  like 
Seltzer  water.  The  general  impression:  a  big  gar- 
den, beyond  the  garden,  mountains  covered  with 
forest,  few  people,  little  movement  in  the  street. 
The  garden  and  the  flowers  are  splendidly  cared  for. 
But  to-day,  apropos  of  nothing,  it  has  begun  raining; 
I  sit  in  our  room,  and  already  begin  to  feel  that  in 
another  two  or  three  days  I  shall  be  thinking  of  how 
to  escape. 

I  am  still  eating  butter  in  enormous  quantities  and 
with  no  effect.  I  can't  take  milk.  The  doctor  here, 
Schworer,  married  to  a  Moscow  woman,  turns  out  to 
be  skilful  and  nice. 

We  shall  perhaps  return  to  Yalta  by  sea  from 
Trieste  or  some  other  port.  Health  is  coming  back 
to  me  not  by  ounces  but  by  stones.  Anyway,  I  have 
learned  here  how  to  feed.  Coffee  is  forbidden  to  me 
absolutely,  it  is  supposed  to  be  relaxing;  I  am  begin- 
ning by  degrees  to  eat  eggs.  Oh,  how  badly  the  Ger- 
man women  dress! 

I  live  on  the  ground  floor.  If  only  you  knew  what 
the  sun  is  here!  It  does  not  scorch,  but  caresses. 
I  have  a  comfortable  low  chair  in  which  I  can  sit  or 
lie  down.  I  will  certainly  buy  the  watch,  I  haven't 
forgotten  it.  How  is  Mother?  Is  she  in  good 
spirits?  Write  to  me.  Give  her  my  love.  Olga  is 
going  to  a  dentist  here.   .   .   . 

June  16. 

I  am  living  amongst  the  Germans  and  have  al- 
ready got  used  to  my  room  and  to  the  regime,  but  can 
never  get  used  to  the  German  peace  and  quiet.     Not 


414  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV 

a  sound  in  the  house  or  outside  it;  only  at  seven 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  at  midday  there  is  an 
expensive  but  very  poor  band  playing  in  the  garden. 
One  feels  there  is  not  a  single  drop  of  talent  in  any- 
thing nor  a  single  drop  of  taste;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  order  and  honesty  to  spare.  Our  Rus- 
sian life  is  far  more  talented,  and  as  for  the  Italian 
or  the  French,  it  is  beyond  comparison. 

My  health  has  improved.  I  don't  notice  now  as  I 
go  about  that  I  am  ill;  my  asthma  is  better,  nothing 
is  aching.  The  only  trace  left  of  my  illness  is  ex- 
treme thinness;  my  legs  are  thin  as  they  have  never 
been.  The  German  doctors  have  turned  all  my  life 
upside  down.  At  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  I 
drink  tea  in  bed — for  some  reason  it  must  be  in  bed ; 
at  half-past  seven  a  German  by  way  of  a  masseur 
comes  and  rubs  me  all  over  with  water,  and  this  seems 
not  at  all  bad.  Then  I  have  to  lie  still  a  little,  get 
up  at  eight  o'clock,  drink  acorn  cocoa  and  eat  an 
immense  quantity  of  butter.  At  ten  o'clock,  oatmeal 
porridge,  extremely  nice  to  taste  and  to  smell,  not 
like  our  Russian.  Fresh  air  and  sunshine.  Read- 
ing the  newspaper.  At  one  o'clock,  dinner,  at  which 
I  must  not  taste  everj^thing  but  only  the  things  Olga 
chooses  for  me,  according  to  the  German  doctor's 
prescription.  At  four  o'clock  the  cocoa  again.  At 
seven  o'clock  supper.  At  bedtime  a  cup  of  straw- 
berry tea — that  is  as  a  sleeping  draught.  In  all  this 
there  is  a  lot  of  quackery,  but  a  lot  of  what 
is  really  good  and  useful — for  instance,  the  por- 
ridge. I  shall  bring  some  oatmeal  from  here  with 
me.   .   .   . 


LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV  415 

June  21. 

Things  are  going  all  right  with  me,  only  I  have 
begun  to  get  sick  of  Badenweiler.  There  is  so  much 
German  peace  and  order  here.  It  was  different  in 
Italy.  To-day  at  dinner  they  gave  us  boiled  mutton 
— what  a  dish!  The  whole  dinner  is  magnificent, 
but  the  maitres  d'hotel  look  so  important  that  it  makes 
one  uneasy. 

June  28. 

...  It  has  begun  to  be  terribly  hot  here.  The 
heat  caught  me  unawares,  as  I  have  only  winter 
suits  here.  I  am  gasping  and  dreaming  of  getting 
away.  But  where  to  go?  I  should  like  to  go  to 
Italy,  to  Como,  but  everyone  is  running  away  from 
the  heat  there.  It  is  hot  everywhere  in  the  south 
of  Europe.  I  should  like  to  go  from  Trieste  to 
Odessa  by  steamer,  but  I  don't  know  how  far  it  is 
possible  now,  in  June  and  July.  ...  If  it  should 
be  rather  hot  it  doesn't  matter;  I  should  have  a 
flannel  suit.  I  confess  I  dread  the  railway  journey. 
It  is  stifling  in  the  train  now,  particularly  with  my 
asthma,  which  is  made  worse  by  the  slightest  thing. 
Besides,  there  are  no  sleeping  carriages  from  Vienna 
right  up  to  Odessa;  it  would  be  uncomfortable. 
And  we  should  get  home  by  railway  sooner  than  we 
need,  and  I  have  not  had  enough  holiday  yet.  It  is 
so  hot  one  can't  bear  one's  clothes,  I  don't  know  what 
to  do.  Olga  has  gone  to  Freiburg  to  order  a  flannel 
suit  for  me,  there  are  neither  tailors  nor  shoemakers 
in  Badenweiler.  She  has  taken  the  suit  Dushar  made 
me  as  a  pattern. 

I  like  the  food  here  very  much,  but  it  does  not 
seem  to  suit  me;  my  stomach  is  constantly  being  up- 


416  LETTERS  OF  CHEKHOV      > 

set.  I  can't  eat  the  butter  here.  Evidently  my  di- 
gestion is  hopelessly  ruined.  It  is  scarcely  possible 
to  cure  it  by  anything  but  fasting — that  is,  eating 
nothing — and  that's  the  end  of  it.  And  the  only 
remedy  for  the  asthma  is  not  moving. 

There  is  not  a  single  decently  dressed  German 
woman.     The  lack  of  taste  makes  one  depressed. 

Well,  keep  well  and  happy.     My  love  to  Mother, 
Vanya,  George,  and  all  the  rest.     Write! 

I  kiss  you  and  press  your  hand.  i 

Yours,  I 

A.  ' 


THE    END  ^ 


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